












2. -f "s 









» • o. 






^^9- 






V 









-oV*' 






% 0" ' 

ft 




f • 









.0 



1 • • 



^^ "*"««' -V 






^^0 









.^ e « o ^ .<S«* 









• • s 


















» • • '♦ '^^^ v" • • - - 
















• • • 



«^ * o » o ^ -^^ >^ ' ^ \ 



-bv^ 



t • 



POEMS. 



?<'4- 



POEMS: 



mxti, f assioiiate, im!j i^^^eiiilciri. 



BY 



MARY E. HEWITT, 




NEW-YORK : 
LAMPORT, BLAKEMAIT & LAW, S PARK PLACE. 



M.DCOO.LIV. 






Enteeed, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by 

LAMPORT, BLA KEMAN & LAW , 

in the Clerk's Office of tbe District Court for the Southern District of 

New- York. 



JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER, 

49 Aiin-Stre«t. 



CONTENTS. 



The Crucifixion, 

The Songs of our Land, 

The Green Mountains, 

Planting the Corn, 

Thunderstorm on the Tappaan Zee, 

To the Eiver Saco, 

The Chain of the Foe, 

The Notch of the White Mountains 

The Axe of the Settler, . 

The Indian Wife, 

The Two Voices, . 

Osceola Signing the Treaty, 

A Thought of the Pilgrims, 

A Song of the Desert, 

The Last Chant of Corinne, 

The Lady to her Glove, 

The Hungarian Wife, 

The Passionate Pilgrim, 

A Lover's Orisons, 

A Dream, 

A Lay, 

Song, 

Love's Pleading, 

Love's Limning, 

The Sunflower to the Sun, 

The Prayer of a Thirsting Heart, 

Waiting to Cross the Ferry, 

Coming Home, 



PAGE 

9 
13 
17 
19 
20 
22 
23 
24 
27 
28 
80 
31 
33 
36 
37 
88 
40 
41 
42 
43 
44 
45 
46 
47 
48 
40 
50 
52 



CONTENTS. 



By the Hearth, 

A Voice of the Heart, 

Parting Words, . 

Imitation of Sappho, 

Leonora to Tasso, 

Leonora Thinking of Tasso, 

A Legend, 

Bless Thee, . 

The Ocean Tide to the Eivulet, 

Tlie Wife's Prayer, . 

Alone, . . • • 

The Yonng Wife, 

The Child of Fame, 

The Ideal Personified, 

Ten Years Ago, . 

A Eomance, 

Narcissus, 

Greek Song of Triumph, 

Athletas, . . . • 

The Complaint of Lais, 

The Scythian to his Gohlet, 

Midnight on Marathon, 

Sappho to the Sibyl, 

Theseus Forsaking Ariadne, 

Forgotten Heroes, 

Cameo L, . 

Cameo II., 

Cameo III., 

Heart Whispers, 

The Dreamer, 

He Loves Me, 

Would I were with Thee, 

Thy Kiss, 

To Daniel Webster, 

To a Divine, 

Cattle in Summer, 

To a Friend, 

Within the World's Dread Furnace 

Harold the Valiant, . - : . 

Harold in Captivity, 

Drift-wood, 

Finn's Saga, . 



PAGE 

53 

54 

55 

56 

57 

58 

59 

60 

60 

62 

63 

64 

65 

66 

67 

63 

69 

72 

73 

74 

76 

77 

79 

80 

82 

84 

84 

85 

86 

86 

87 

87 

88 

89 

89 

90 

91 

91 

92 

95 

97 

98 



CONTENTS. 



Ecgiier Lodbrog, 

The Fire of Peace, 

A Yarn, 

The Mate, 

The Launch, 

God Bless the Mariner, 

The Pilot, 

The Poor, God Help Them, . 

The Poor Man's Doings, 

Gentility's Poor, 

A Plea for the Eich Man, 

A Song of Genius, 

To Frances S. Osgood, 

On a Portrait of Mrs, Osgood, 

To the Memoiy of Mrs, Osgood 

To Ferdinand Freiligratli, 

To Mary of Kentucky, 

To Mrs. H. P. S., 

A Banquet Song, 

The Last Battle, 

The Maiden's Destiny, 

Green Places in tlie City, 

The Hearth of Home, 

Parting from a Household, 

Guardian Angels, 

The Grave of L, E.L., 

The Fountain of Youth, 

The Conqueror's Banner, 

Lament of Josephine, 

A Lament for the Old Year, 

To a Musician, 

The Highlander's Wager, 

Persevere, 

To a Pair of Old Ear-rings, , 

Song of the Owl, 

The Bird of Paradise, 

A Bivouac in the Desert, 

A Memory in the Desert, 

The City by the Sea, 

Tell Me All, , 

A Song of Europe, 

The Dish of Porcelain, 



PAGE 

101 

105 

107 

110 

112 

lU 

115 

116 

117 

119 

120 

122 

123 

124 

125 

126 

128 

129 

180 

182 

138 

135 

136 

138 

139 

140 

142 

143 

144 

145 

146 

148 

152 

153 

155 

156 ■ 

157 

159 

161 

162 

164. 

165 



8 CONTENTS. 






PAGB 


The Lily's Transformation, 


. ler 


A Tale of Luzon, ..... 


168 


The Portrait of a Beautiful Womau, 


. 171 


Myth, 


172 


An Herb from Ticonderoga, 


. 178 


The Sojourners in the Desert, 


181 


To Mrs. S. L., . 


. 182 


A Dirge for Margaret, . . . . 


183 


A Song of Calabria, .... 


. 184 


The Legend of the Nun, .... 


186 


The Eose and the Tomb, 


. 190 


Chansonnette, ...... 


191 


The Dead Leaf, .... 


. 192 


Ode XX. of Anacreon, .... 


193 


Pirate's Song, .... 


. 194 


Consolation, ...... 


195 


Love's Philosophy,'; .... 


. 196 



POEMS. 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 

" In that day there shall be a fountain opened in the house of David, and to 
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness. 

" And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will cut 
off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall be no more remem- 
bered."— Zechariah, c. 13, V. 1, 2. 



Under the bouglis of her palm-trees at noontide reposing, 
Calm in the sunlight outstretched lay the City of David. 
Hushed were her streets and her byways, her dwellings 

deserted — 
Deserted save only the palace of Pilate the ruler — 
Pilate the judge, who sat bowed, with his spirit in ashes, 
Troubled with doubt that his wife had invoked with her 

dreaming. 

Why poured her populace forth from the city at morning, 
Leaving her desolate thus 'mid her gates, in the noontide ? 
Went they with timbrel and dances to welcome a victor 
Back from his war-fields, and bearing proud branches of 
laurel, 



10 THE CRUCIFIXION. 

And garlands of myrtle to strew on his pathway rejoicing, 
Filling the air with the chant of their chorus triumphal ? 

Ah, no ! ah, not thus had they gone, in the cool of the 

morning, 
Brushing the dew from the grass with their footsteps of 

gladness, 
Wakino- the birds from their nests with the beat of their 

timbrels ; 
But hurrying on, with loud murmurs and angry revilings, 
The crowd had pressed forth, and borne in their midst, with 

the garland 
Piercing his brow with its thorns, uncomplaining, the 

Saviour. 



Thus had they gone forth in wrath, on to Golgotha throng- 

ing. 
Blindly to crucify him they believed an impostor ; 
And under her palm trees Jerusalem slept, while the Marys, 
Weeping, bent low at the cross of her martyred Redeemer — 
Slept while he cried, " Eli, EH, lama sabacthani!" 
Nor knew that a God, for her sake, while she slumbered, 
was dying. 

Hellas, the fair, fruitful land of the vine and the olive, 
Where Beauty, incarnate, arose from the flashing Egean — 
Hellas, whose gods were the mythical gods of Olympus, 
Gods that lay hid in huge veins of Pentelican marble, 
Till boldly her sculptors carved through the stone that en- 
veiled them. 
And gave them, the wonderful forms, to her temples and 
altai's — 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 11 

When upon Calvaiy bowed the expiring Redeemer, 
Yielding his spirit, aloud in his agony calling — 
Hellas lay hushed by the shores of the far blue Ionian, 
And her wood-nymphs and fauns reposed in the pines 

from their dances, 
When a voice like the Thunderer's, sounding along through 

her valleys, 
Cried, " The great Pan is dead !" and her deities trembled, 

affrighted. 



Never the shepherds again on the Nomian mountains 

Shall hark to his reed, as they rest in the shadows at noon- 
tide ; 

Never again, with the spotted skin hung from his 
shoulder, 

And his brow crowned with pine, shall he pipe to the swains 
of Arcady, 

Or drink from their rude wooden bowls, fresh brouo-ht from 
the milking — 

Pan died, and in Hellas expired the gods of Olympus. 



On rolled the sound, and the Sphinx sad to Egypt re- 
peated 
The words, then the deified crocodile perished 
Low in the Nile — then Apis sank in the fountain. 
And the mystery fell from the forehead of Isis for ever. 
Then from their pyreia, in Persia, fled her wise men, the 

Magi, 
And her Sun-worship died, as her fires died in their bra- 
ziers. 



12 THE CRUCIFIXION. 

On, like the surge, swept the sound, and in Gaul, and in 

Britain, 
Uncropped grew the mistletoe still, high aloft on the oak 

trees ; 
And quenched were the fires of the Druids for e'er, and the 

Northmen 
Remembered no longer the mystical runes of their Odin — 
And afar in the wilds of the New World, far over the 

ocean. 
Staid was the knife high uplift in the proud Teocalli. 

Wake, oh Iconoclast ! hearest thou not still the wise men 
From infidel lands, " Show us him we would worship," de- 

mandino^ ? 
Zion, arise! like the star in the old time that led them — 
Point to the crucified, saying, " Our King, lo ! behold him !" 
Or must thou tarry, in sooth, with thy curse, till He cometh 
Again, ere thou waken to hail him thy promised Messiah ? 

Oh heart ! Pan is dead ! Oh heart, through whose desolate 

chambers 
Evermore goeth the cry, " Eli, lama sabacthani !" 
Was there no blood of the lamb on thy door-posts and 

lintel. 
When on the wings of destruction the angel swept o'er thee, 
Crushing thee low in the dust, with thy downfallen idols — 
Lo ! from the Cross falls the sanctified balm, for thy heal- 
ing. 

Heart of the world — the world that, corrupt, in the old 

time. 
Baptized in the Deluge, rose pure from the flood, as from 

f'haos — 



THE SONGS OF OUR LAND. 13 

Heart, that hast pointed the spear, and bound on the gar- 
land. 

Piercing thine own — sleep no more, but awake to thine 
anguish ; 

And the blood of the Lamb thou hast slaughtered anew 
shall baptize thee, 

And thrill all thy agonized pulses with life everlasting. 



THE SONGS OF OUK LAND. 

" Their voice shall be heard in other ages, 
When the kings of Temora have failed." 

OssiAN. 

Ye say we sing no household songs 

To children round our hearths at play ; 
No minstrelsy to us belongs, 

No legend of a bygone day — 
No old tradition of the hills — 
Our giant land no memory fills — 

"We have no proud, heroic lay. 
Ye ask the time-worn storied page — 
Ye ask the lore of other age. 

From us, a race of yesterday! 

Of yore, in Britain's feudal halls, 

Where many a storied trophy hung, 

"With shield and banner on the walls ; 
The Bard's high harp was sternly strung 

To praise of war — its fierce delights — 

To " Heroes of an hundred fights," 



14 THE SONGS OF OUR LAND. 

The lofty sounding shell outrung. 
Gone is the ancient Bardic race — 
Their song has found perpetual place 

Theii- country's proud archives among. 

The stirring Scottish border tale 

Pealed from the chords in chieftain's hall. 
The wild traditions of the Gael 

The wandering harper's lays recall. 
Bold themes, Germania, fii-e thy strings — 
And when the Marseillaise outrings 

With patriot ardor thrills the Gaul. 
All have their legend and their song, 
Records of glory, feud, and wrong ; 

Of conquest wrought, and foemen's fall. 

With joy the Switzer's bosom thrills 

When sounds the " Rans des Vaches" on his^h- 
A race as ancient as their hills 

Still echo that wild mountain cry — 
He springs along the rocky height, 
He marks the lammergeyer's flight, 

The startled chamois bounding by ; 
He snufFs the mountain breeze of morn. 
He winds again the mountain horn, 

And loud the wakened Alps reply ! 

Our fathers bore from Albion's isle 
No stories of her sounding lyres — 

They left the old baronial pile, 

They left the harp of ringing wires. 

Ours are the legends still rehearsed. 

Ours are the songs that gladsome burst 



THE SONGS OF OUR LAND. 15 

By all your cot and palace fires — 
Each tree that in your soft wind stirs, 
Waves o'er our ancient sepulchres, 

The sleeping ashes of our sires ! 

Thev left the Madsome Christmas chime, 

The yule fire, and the mistletoe — 
They left the vain, ungodly rhyme. 

For hymns the solemn-paced and slow — 
They left the mass, the stoled priest, 
The Scarlet Woman and the Beast, 

For worship rude and altars low — 
Their land, with its dear memories fraught. 
They left for liberty of thought — 

For stranger clime and savage foe. 

And forth they went — nerved to forsake 

Home, and the chain they might not wear ; 
And woman's heart was strong, to break 

The links of love that bound her there ; — 
Here, free to worship and believe, 
From many a log-built hut at eve 

Went up the suppliant voice of prayer. 
Is it not writ on history's page. 
That the strong hand grasped our heritage ? 

Of the lion claimed his forest lair ! 

Our people raised no loud war songs, 

They shouted no fierce battle cry ; 
A burning meraoiy of their wrongs 

Lit up their path to victory. 
With prayer to God to aid the right. 
The yeoman girded him for fight, 



16 THE SONGS OF OUR LAND. 

To fi*ee the land he tilled, or die. 
They bore no proud escutcheoned shield, 
No blazoned banners to the field — 

NaiiQ-ht but their watchword — " Liberty ! " 

Their sons — when after-years shall fling 

O'er these, romance — when time shall cast 
The mighty shadow of his wing 

Between them and the storied past — 
Will tell of foul oppression's heel, 
Of hands that bore the avenging steel, 

And battled sternly to the last — 
By their hearth fires — on the free hill-side — 
So shall our songs, o'er every tide. 

Swell forth triumphant on the blast 1 

«>#E'en now the word that roused our land 

Is caUing o'er the wave, "Awake ! " 
And pealing on from strand to strand, 

Wherever ocean's surges break. 
Up to the quickened ear of toil 
It rises from the teeming soil. 

And bids the slave his bonds forsake — 
Hark ! from the mountains to the sea. 
The old world echoes, " Liberty ! " 

Till thrones to their foundations shake. 

And ye who idly set at naught 
The sacred boon in suffering won, 

Eead o'er our page with glory fraught, 
Nor scoff that we no more have done. 

Read how the nation of the free 

Has carved her deeds in history, 



THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. 17 

Nor count them bootless every one. 
Deeds of our miglity men of old, 
Whose names stand evermore enrolled 

Beneath the name of Washington. 

Oh, mine own fair and glorious land ! 

Did I not hold such faith in thee, 
As did the honored patriot band 

Who bled to make thee great and free — 
Did I not look to hear thee sung, 
To hear thy lyre yet proudly strung. 

Thou hadst not waked my minstrelsy. 
And I shall hear thy song resound, 
Till from his shackles man shall bound. 

And shout, exultant, " Liberty ! " 



THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. 

Stronghold of Freedom's stalwart band, 
Firm as when to the all-formino- hand 

Your peaks from chaos rose — 
Piled not hke Atlas in its might. 
Nor Alps, nor Andes in your height, 

Crowned with perpetual snows. 

Proud cradle of the Vermontese, 

Where healthful floats the mountain breeze, 

2* 



18 TllK GREEN MOUNTAINS. 

! give me but again 
To track that valley green and fair, 
By soft Winooski wandering there 

In beauty to Champlain. 

Oh ! glorious first when morning bright 
Lifted the mantle of the night 

From off your glittering sides, 
Ye broke upon my raptured view — 
In robes of mist, and pearls of dew, 

Bedecked like Eastern brides. 

Up flowed your veils of gauzy sheen — 
There lay your pastures, all in green. 

Outspread beneath the sun ; 
Nor toiled your husbandmen in vain — 
For wide the yellow, ripened grain 

Waved o'er ye, every one. 

The kine lowed on each grassy steep, 
There, in your shadows browsed the sheep 

And winged the laden bee ; 
All flashing welled the mountain springs. 
The sparkhng rills, like living things. 

Leaped downward, joyously. 

Short time I breathed your mountain air, 
Or lingered in your valleys fair, 

Or by that winding river ; 
But oh ! your lovehness to me 
Is pictured bright in memory, 

There to endure for ever. 



PLANTING THE CORN. 



19 



PLANTING THE CORN. 

an Enljian ILtgenU. 

" What shall I do," the red man said, 
" To bring a blessing on my kind ? " 

" Plant me," Manitou answered, 

" And thou the wished-for good shalt find 1 " 

Then, strong in faith, with patient toil 
The red man wrought the God's behest. 

And soon from out the teeming soil 
Arose Manitou's feathery crest. 

And gi*een it waved above the plain. 

And when the plant its time had thriven. 

The red man reaped the full-eared grain. 
And thus to earth the corn was given. 

Thus, when above oppression's laws, 
The man to man and justice warm, 

Shall rear a suffering people's cause, 
And bold and fearless urge reform — 

Whether it be for conscience sake. 

Though even the stake his zeal requite — 

Whether to freedom's call he wake 
And lift his righteous hand to smite — 



20 THUNDER-STORM ON THE TAPPAAN ZEE. 

However to a brother's good 
His energies are nobly sworn, 

E'en though the grain he cast be blood, 
He plants a God who sows the corn. 



THUNDER-STORM ON THE TAPPAAN ZEE. 

Down from the dark clouds came the tempest swooping, 
Rending with thunderbolts its onward way ; 

Far round the headland came the white waves, trooping 
Like frightened wild birds, fast along the bay. 

Landward the hurrying skiffs were quickly rowing, 
Each laden bark up-furled her flowing sail ; 

The husbandman, the ripened meadow mowing, 
Hastened to shelter from the threatening gale. 

Under the tall trees stood the watchfal cattle, 

Low in the strong wind bowed the full-eared grain ; 

Then, like an army sweeping on to battle, 

Down o'er the parched earth poured the loud-paced rain. 

It passed ; and at his door the gladdened mortal 

Turned to the brightening heavens his thankful brow. 

When, lo ! on yonder shore, as 't were the portal 
To glory, rose the wondrous, seven-fold bow ! 



THUNDER-STORM ON THE TAPPAAN ZEE. 21 

The promise-bow tbroiigliout the ages cherished, 
The spirit bridge, whereon, the ancient Norse 

Believed the hero who in battle perished 
Rode to Valhalla on his phantom horse. 

The wampum belt wherewith, the Indian sayeth, 
Wahcondah bindeth strongly back the rain ; 

The sign of power om* God to us betrayeth, 
To cheer our future when our hope seems vain. 

Oh ! what a temple then rose all around us ! 

Faded the portal fi-om our raptured eyes, 
While through the glowing radiance that enwound us, 

Floated Earth's incense up to Paradise ! 

And on the West's high altar Sunset's pyre, 

That piled with gorgeous flame in grandeur lay, 

Burned heavenward, like a sacrificial fire, 
A pure thank-oftering for the blessed day. 



Thanks for the wayside joys that rise to greet us. 
Thanks for the rain that cools the spirit's core ; 

Thanks for the truthful hearts that glow to meet us, 
And fill our lives with memories evermore. 



22 TO THE RIVER SACO. 



TO THE RIVER SACO. 
aUritten at tte Jails. 

Thou, mountain-born ! tliat gusbing from tbe heigbt, 
Widening and deepening in tbine onward flow ; 

Here burlest tby waters beadlong in tby migbt, 
Down dasbing 'mid tbe jagged rocks below, 
As leaps tbe maddened war borse on tbe foe — 

And rusbing ever onward to tbe sea, 

Strong as tboii wert a tboiisand years ago, 

Beneatb tbe stars tbat first companioned tbee ; 

Exbaustless tbrongb all time — type of eternity ! 

How, tbrongb eacb age bas eartb witb cbange been rife. 
Since on tby wave primeval morning lay — 

Wbole becatombs bave bled amid tbe strife, 
Empires bave risen, floiirisbed, passed away. 
And new-born states sprung full-armed into day — 

Centuries tbat saw tby tireless waters roll, 
Adown tby vigorous tide have swept for aye ; 

But tbou still urgest onw^ard to tbe goal, 

As if He wbo outpoured bad filled tbee wntb a soul. 

Wbere now tbe tinkling berd-bell smites tbe air. 
High o'er tby murmur's rang tbe war-wboop dire ; 

Wben, tbe red Indian's bunting grounds to sbare 
Tbe pale-face came — and rose tbe cbiefs in ire : 
They struggled long and perisbed, son and sire. 



THE CHAIN OF THE FOE. 23 

Where late the crouching panther made his lair, 
Gleams in the sunlight many a village spire — 
The settler's axe has laid the forest bare, 
The Indian's council fire is quenched for ever there. 

But thou remainest — thou, and yon enthroned hills. 
And crowned with morning, ere yet night opaque 

Lifts her dun mantle from the swelling rills. 

Here roamed of old the gaunt wolf through the brake, 
And on his prey leapt forth the glittering snake. 

Erewhiles the deer to thy cool wave below. 
At hot noon panting hied, his thirst to slake ; 

Unmindful all where swift above thy flow. 

The deadly shaft well aimed, sped from the hunter's bow. 

The traveller tracks thee from thy mountain source, 
Winding thy way with many a deep indent ; 

Now, rushing on resistless in thy course — 
And in thy flow of strength and beauty blent, 
Sees the bold hand of the Omnipotent : — 

Here pausing, where in thine infinity 

Thou pourest for ever forth thy flood unspent. 

He cries, " Change ne'er may turn or fetter thee. 

Till yonder skies grow dim and there be no more sea!" 



THE CHAIN OF THE FOE. 

There's a name on the page of our country's proud story, 
Accursed where the hearth-fires of liberty glow ; 

'Tis the name of the traitor who for gold yielding glory. 
Would have given our land to the chain of her foe. 



24 THE NOTCH OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 

The grandsire grasps sternly the brave sword he weareth, 
While bright in his eye gleams the patriot flame ; 

And the child shrinks appalled at the sound when he heareth 
The name in our history written in shame. 

And the mother folds closer the babe she's caressing, 
And breathes o'er its young head a prayer soft and low, 

To the Being who gave to her people a blessing, 
Who delivered her son from the chain of the foe. 

Oh ! false to its trust, and the proud soil that bore us. 
Was the heart that could doom us to bondage again ; 

But we fought for our homes, and a just God was o'er us, 
To save us from tyranny's scourge and her chain. 

Would ye ask lolio for gold bartered country and glory ? 

Who, base, would have yielded our land to her foe ? 
It is Arnold ! the traitor ! accursed in story 

Wherever the hearth-fires of liberty glow ! 



THE NOTCH OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 

" Glorious, because a shadow of thy might — 
A type, or link for intercourse with thee. 

Wordsworth, 

Dread mountain gorge ! that hast thy way. 

In gloom, the sterile hills among ; 
Where coldly falls the cheering ray 

To light thy path with rocks o'erhung — 
Here 'mid your wild and dark defile, 

O'erawed, and wonder-whelmed I stand ; 
And ask, is this the fearful vale 

That opens on the shadowy land ? 



THE NOTCH OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 25 

Gone from your path the antler'd herd, 

Nor moose, nor caribou* intrude ; 
Nor hum of bee, nor song of bird, 

Awake the voiceless soHtude. 
No sound comes o'er my listening ear, 

To break the solemn, calm profound ; 
But through the hush methiiiks I hear 

The very stillness breathe around. 

Art thou of earthquake old the track ? 

Or were these towering ramparts piled 
When first He bade the wave roll back, 

And young creation's morning smiled ? 
Or 'mid your caves primeval pent, 

Burst here the red volcano's wrath ? 
Dark glen ! what power resistless rent 

Through these eternal rocks a path ? 

Thou stream — thus winding silently, 

From forth the narrow valley sped ; 
When, through all time's immensity. 

Was fashioned here thy darksome bed ? 
When from the erst submerged earth. 

The flood flowed back from hill and plain, 
Rolled here the wave, subsiding, forth, 

To join the far receding main ? 

Bright waterfall! that from o'erhead, 
Adown the rocky steep dost glide ; 

Thus binding like a silver thread. 
The arid mountain's jaggy side — 

* A species of large elk, that has made its appearance among 
(he White Mountains, is there known by the name of the caribou. 



26 THE NOTCH OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 

While vines and motley mosses cling 
To cliffs that part to give thee way ; 

As if to grace so fair a thing, 

They were bedecked for holiday — 

Thou, gleaming through the valley's shade, 

Like hope 'mid desolation sprung 
To cheer the wanderer through the glade — 

Give to your flow exhaustless tongue ! 
Sing, as from crag to crag you leap — 

Unto the listening valley tell 
Who called you from your crystal sleep, 

And bade you from the mountain well ! 

And you, ye hoar triumvirate,* 

Your shaggy brows with clouds o'erhung ; 
Your towering heads at morning's gate, 

Your feet the distant vales among — 
Your sleeping avalanches wake ! 

Speak forth in thunder from your height — 
Shout, till the firm set mountains quake, 

And say who piled you in your might ! 

What all pervading presence near, 

Swells through the valley like a flood ? 
My awe-struck soul, and filled with fear, 

Me through the silence whispers, " God ! " 
" A God !— A God ! "—the hills awake— 

From rock, and stream, and springing sod, 
A thousand echoing voices break 

Exultant forth, " A God !— A God ! " 

* Mounts "Washington, Adams, and Jefferson. 



THE AXE OF THE SETTLER, 27 



THE AXE OF THE SETTLER. 

Thou conqueror of the forest, 

With keen and bloodless edge — 
Hail ! to the sturdy craftsman 

Who tempered thee, bold wedge ! 
Though the warrior deem thee weapon 

Fashioned only for the slave, 
Yet the settler knows thee mio-htier 

Than the tried Damascus glaive. 

While desolation marketh 

The course of foeman's brand, 
Thy strong blow scatters plenty 

And gladness through the land. 
Thou opest the soil to culture. 

To the sunlight and the dew ; 
And the village spire thou plantest 

Where of old the forest grew. 

When the broad sea rolled between them 

And their own far native land, 
Thou wert the faithful ally 

Of the hardy pilgrim band. 
They bore no warlike eagles, 

No bannei-s swept the sky ; 
Nor the clarion, like a tempest. 

Swelled its fearful notes on hiirh. 



28 THE INDIAN WIFE. 

But the ringing wild re-echoed 

Thy bold, resistless stroke, 
AVhere, like incense, on the morning 

Went up the cabin smoke. 
The tall oaks bowed before thee, 

Like reeds before the blast ; 
And the earth put forth in gladness, 

AVhere the axe in triumph passed. 

Then hail ! thou noble conqueror ! 

That, when tyranny oppress'd. 
Hewed for our fathers from the wild 

A land wherein to rest. 
Hail to the power that giveth 

The bounty of the soil, 
And freedom, and an honored name, 

To the hardy sons of toil. 



THE INDIAN WIFE. 

The glittering dew on leaf and blade, 

Flashed bright in morning's beam ; 
When an Indian wife unmoored her skiffj 

And launched upon the stream. 
One hand, as 'twere instinctively. 

The paddle listless plied ; 
The other clasped a child, that clung 

In terror to her side. 
Where far upon the fearful path 

The foaming cataract lay, 
Her gaze was on the arch, that seemed 

The portal of their way ; 



THE INDIAN WIFE. 29 

And a song was on her pallid lip, 

And a wild light in her eye, 
As the current bore them swiftly on, 

Adown the stream, to die. 
" There's a dark-eyed fawn in Miqiion's lodge — 

Will he miss the Bounding Doe ? 
Will the hunter's foot be on our trail. 

To the land where our spirits go ? 
Oh ! a fairer form than mine will bound 

At eve to his embrace ; 
And another now will proudly bear 

His venison from the chase. 
And I have brought thee forth, my boy. 

From thy couch of panther's skin ; 
When the chief returns will he know the hawk 

In the eagle's nest has been ? 
I have launched our birchen-bark canoe. 

Our way lies toward the west — 
We are bound to the happy hunting grounds 

In the Islands of the Blest. 
Droopest thou, my child ? Thy cheek is pale ! 

Thy lips their hue forsake ! 
Dost thou FEAR to pass the waterfall, 

Ere we reach the Silent Lake ? 
HarkJ hark ! — soft spirit-voices call ! 

And amid the glittering spray. 
Behold where brio-ht Wahcondah stands 

And beckons me away ! 
I come ! — I come ! " — A shriek rose high 

Above the cataract's roar ; 
And the echoing hills gave back the cry 

To the forest-girdled shore. 



30 THE TWO VOICES. 



THE TWO VOICES. 

" How many ages hence, 
Shall this our lofty scene be acted over, 
In slates unborn, and accents yet unknown 1 

" So oft as that shall be, 
So often shall the knot of us be called 
The men that gave our country liberty ! " 

Julius C^sak. 

A VOICE went fortli tliroughout the land, 
And an answering voice replied 

From tLe rock-piled mountain fastnesses 
To the surging ocean tide. 

And far the blazing headlands gleam'd, 
With their land awakening fires ; 

And the hill-tops kindled, peak and height, 
With a hundred answering pyres. 

The quick youth snatched his father's sword, 
And the yeoman rose in might ; 

And the aged grandsire nerved him there. 
For the stormy field of fight. 

And the hillmen left their grass-grown steeps, 
And their flocks and herds unkept ; 

And the ploughshare of the husbandman 
In the half-turn'd furrow slept. 

They wore no steel-wrought panoply. 
Nor shield, nor morion gleamed ; 

Nor the flaunt of bannered blazonry 
In the morning sunlight streamed. 



OSCEOLA SIGNING THE TREATY. 31 

They bore no marshalled, firm array — 

Like a torrent on they poured, 
With the firelock, and the mower's scythe, 

And the old forefathers' sword. 

And again a voice went sounding on, 

And the bonfires streamed on high ; 
And the hill-tops rang to the headlands back. 

With the shout of victory ! 

So the land redeemed her heritage, 

By the free hand mailed in right. 
From the war-shod, hireling foeman's tread, 

And the ruthless grasp of might. 



OSCEOLA SIGNING THE TREATY, 

Stern in the white man's council hall, 
Amid the red chiefs of the wood. 

While fearless flashed his eye on all, 
The warrior Osceola stood — 

And fast the words that keenly stung. 

Like arrows bounded from his tongue. 

"Brothers !" he said, " and ye are come 
■ To sign the white man's treaty here — 
To yield to him our forest home. 

And he will give us lands and deer 
Beyond the western prairie flowers, 
For tliese broad huntino- o-rounds of oui*s. 



32 OSCEOLA SIGNING THE TREATY. 

The pale face is a singing bird ! 

Hungry and crafty as the kite — 
And ye his cunning song have heard 

Till, like his cheek, your hearts are white ! 
Till for his fire-drink and his gold 
Your fathers' bones their sons have sold ! 

And ye, the strong and pale of face. 

Have bought the Indian's hunting ground- 
Bought his time-honored burial place 

With little gold and many a wound — 
Yea — bouo'ht his riorht with hand of mail ! 
And, with your blood-hounds on the trail, 

You drive him from the everglades, 

Beyond the Mississippi's flow ; 
And, with your rifles and your blades, 

You hunt him like the buffalo — 
Till turns he, goaded, maddened, back, 
To strike the foe upon the track ! 

Let the white chieftains pause, and hear 
The answer of the Seminole : — 

The red man is a foe to fear — 

He will not sign yon faithless scroll, 

Nor yield to you the lands you prize — 

The war-belt on your pathway lies ! " 

Leapt forth the glaive beneath his hand, 

As from the bent bow leaps the shaft, 

And fierce he drove the tempered brand 

Through board and parchment, to the haft- 

"And thus," he said, with eye of flame — 

'• Thus Osceola signs vour claim ! " 



A THOUGHT OF THE PILGRIMS. 33 



A THOUGHT OF THE PILGRIMS. 

How beauteous in the morning light, 

All glittering in her pride, 
Trimountain, from her ancient height. 

Looks down upon the tide. 
The fond wind woos her from the sea, 
And ocean clasps her lovingly. 

As bridegroom clasps his bride. 

And out across the waters dark, 

Careering on their way. 
Full many a gallant home-bound bark 

Comes dashing up the bay; 
Their pennons float on morning's gale, 
The sunlight gilds each swelling sail, 

And flashes on the spray. 

Not thus toward fair New England's coast. 

With eager-hearted crew. 
The pilgrim-freighted, tempest-tost, 

And lonely Mayflower drew. 
There was no hand outstretched to bless, 
No welcome from the wilderness 

To cheer her hardy few. 

But onward drove the winter clouds 

Athwart the darkening sky. 
And hoarsely through the stiffiened shrouds 

The wind swept stormily ; 



34 A THOUGHT OF THE PILGRIMS. 

While shrill from out the beetling rock 
That seemed the billows' force to mock, 
Broke forth the sea-gull's cry. 

God's blessing on their memories ! 

Those sturdy men and bold, 
Who girt their hearts in righteousness. 

Like martyr saints of old ; 
And 'mid oppression sternly sought 
To hold the sacred boon of thought 

In freedom uncontrolled. 

They left the old ancestral hall, 
The creed they might not own ; 

They left home, kindred, fortune, all — 
Left glory and renown ; 

For what to them was pride of birth. 

Or what to them the jDomp of earth. 
Who sought a heavenly crown ? 

Strong armed in faith they crossed the flood- 
Here, 'mid the forest fair. 

With axe and mattock, from the wood 
They laid broad pastures bare ; 

And with the ploughshare turned the plain, 

And planted fields of yellow grain. 
And built their dwelHngs there. 

The Pilgrim Sires ! — How from the night 

Of centuries dim and vast, 
It comes o'er every hill and height. 

That watchword from the past ! 



A THOUGHT OF THE PILGRIMS. 35 

And old men's pulses quicker bound, 
And young hearts leap to hear the sound, 
As at the trumpet's blast. 

And though the Pilgrims' day has set, 

Its glorious light remains — 
Its beam refulgent lingers yet 

O'er all New England's plains. 
Dear land ! — though doomed from thee to part, 
The blood that warmed the Pilgrim's heart 

Swells proudly in my veins ! 

Go to the islands of the sea, 

Wherever man may dare ; 
Wherever pagan bows the knee, 

Or Christian bends in prayer ; 
To every shore that bounds the main. 
Wherever keel or strand has lain, 

New England's sons are there. 

ToU they for wealth on distant coast, 

Roam they from sea to sea; 
Self-exiled, still her children boast 

Their birth-place 'mong the fi'ee — 
Or seek they fame on glory's track. 
Their hearts, like mine, turn ever back. 

New England ! unto thee. 



36 A SONG OF THE DESERT. 



A SONG OF THE DESERT. 

I WILL tell tliee how I loved thee, 

Now that my love is dead ; 
And the fear I had in loving 

Fills my life no more with dread. 
How I struggled with the feeling 

All too strong to be controlled, 
Wrestled wildly with the angel. 

Like the patriarch of old. 
I will tell thee how I loved thee, 

Now that my love is dead, 
And the angel that o'ercame me 

From my tent for e'er has fled. 

Thy love came over my being, 

In its glory and its guile ; 
Fertilizing my life's Egypt, 

Like the overflowing Nile ; 
And the lilies of my spirit 

Grew more fair within the tide, 
But I knew 'mid all its brightness, 

That the blest flood would subside. 
Thus it was I feared to love thee — 

But now my love is dead, 
And the sweet wave from my being 

To its source has backward sped. 

Far away upon the Desert 
Stands the lofty pyramid — 



THE LAST CHANT OF CORINNE. 37 

There, 'tis said, a dead king lieth 

In the secret chambers hid : 
Thus, where I, alone and lonely 

Dwell amid life's sands apart, 
Thou, oh love ! my once strong Pharaoh, 

Liest cold within my heart. 
I will tell thee how I lov^ed thee. 

Now that my love is dead, 
And the fear I had in loving 

Fills my hfe no more with dread. 

In the land of the Egyptian 

Are oases on the sand, 
Where the cool fount and the date-tree 

Greet the weary Arab band — 
But the boon my spirit craveth, 

Faint and worn with life's excess, 
Is thy lotus, Nile, that bringeth 

To the heart forgetfulness. 
I have told thee how I loved thee. 

How it filled my soul with dread ; 
But now that love has perished, 

Would that memory too were dead. 



THE LAST CHANT OF CORINNE. 

By that mysterious sympathy which chaineth 

For evermore, my spirit unto thine ; 
And by the memory that alone remaineth 

Of that sweep hope which now no more is mine- 



38 THE LADY TO HER GLOVE. 

And by tlie love my trembling heart betrayeth, 
That quickened by thy gaze, within me lies ; 

As the lone desert bird, the Arab sayeth, 

Warms her young brood to life with her fond eyes — 

Hear me, adored one ! though the world divide us, 

Though never more my hand in thine be prest, 
Though to commingle thought be here denied us. 

Till our high hearts shall beat themselves to rest, 
Forget me not ! forget me not ! oh, ever 

This one, one prayer, my spirit pours to thee — 
Till every memory from earth shall sever, 

Remember, oh, beloved ! remember me ! 

And when the hght within mine eye is shaded. 

When I, o'erwearied, sleep the sleep profound. 
And, like that nymph of yore who drooped and faded, 

And pined for love, till she became a sound, 
My song, perchance awhile to earth remaining. 

Shall come in murmured melody to thee ; 
Then let my lyre's deep, passionate complaining, 

Cry to thy heart, beloved, remember me ^ 



THE LADY TO HER GLOVE. 

Oh, dearest glove ! that y ester morn 
His hand, in greeting, kindly pressed ; 

That I, since that blest hour, have worn 
Within the foldings of my vest. 



THE LADY TO HER GLOVE. 39 

Come to my lips ! again — again ! 

What said to mine his beating heart ? 
For thou didst feel, through every vein 

Along my palm, its language dart. 

Thou, since he clasped thee, to my sense 

Bearest odors of the violet ; 
Sweet flower, that to the heart's suspense 

Breathes love's fond pleading, " Ne'er forget ! " 
Forget ? Ah me ! when every where, 

Throughout the day, till evening dim, 
He is my thought, he is my prayer — 

And all night long I dream of him ! 

Oh, precious glove ! and couldst thou feel 

His warm pulse, throbbing back to mine, 
Through all thy form insensate steal, 

Nor kindle then with life divine ? 
Couldst feel how his soft voice and eyes 

Held me spell-bound in their control, 
Twin liofht and music from the skies ! 

Nor wake within thee, then, a soul ? 

He clasped thee — He ! — O priceless glove ! 

His hand these fingers gently pressed ! 
What if he knew I dared to love ? 

What if his thought my secret guessed ? 
O shame ! yet by my woman's art. 

And by my faithful oracle, 
The sweet revealings of my heart, 

I know he loves me — loves me well ! 



40 THE HUNGARIAN WIFE. 



THE HUNGARIAN WIFE. 

Wake, heart's beloved ! the midnight stars 

Move hushed through yonder sky ; 
Love's hand has loosed thy dungeon bars ; 

Love bids thee v^ake and fly. 
A swift ship goes o'er yonder main, 

Free shores our coming wait ; 
Our land still wears her galling chain, 
Our homes are desolate. 

Yet still our hearts give out the cry, 

As from the battle's van, 
Hungaria 1 Hungaria ! 
Death to the Austrian. 



Ah ! what avails the burning word 

That stirs the heart of life ? 
Our wounded country bears her sword 

All broken from the strife. 
The Austrian and the Muscovite 

Have woven wide her pall. 
And the Moslem's bond-word holds, to-night. 
Her glorious sons in thrall. 

Haste ! haste beloved ! and still our cry 

In yon blest land shall be, 
Hungaria ! Hungaria ! 



Our home and liberty ! 



THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 41 



THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 

Beloved ! -whose thought has filled my years 

With bliss unmingled with alloy ; 
Whose memory beamed upon my tears, 

Or smiled upon my hour of joy — 
The gathering sands of time have spread 

Between thy onward path and mine, 
But the same guiding Hand has led 

Our steps unswerving to the shrine. 

And now I bless the way behind, 

O'er which I've journeyed from the past ; 
Since at the " Mecca of the mind " 

My pilgrim heart meets thine at last. 
Meets thine — meets thee ! — ah ! who can know 

The rapture of that thought — " with thee ! " 
How, when with thee, the moments glow, 

And throb, and thrill, with ecstasy ! 

The heavens so distant on the sand. 

Seem bending downward in thine eyes ; 

While all my soul is lifted, fanned. 
As 'twere with wings from Paradise. 

And all our space to duty given. 

The hours of absence we must know, 

Are like a ladder set to heaven. 

Whereon Thought's angels come and go. 
8* 



42 A lover's orisons. 



A LOVER'S ORISONS. 

Ave Mary ! I am bending, 

With true devotion fraught, 
On my heart's blest rosary counting 
One by one the beads of thought. 
Counting o'er my heart's blest rosary, 

Oh, Mary ! all divine ! 
Every thought an aspiration 
From my spirit unto thine. 
Ave Mary ! Ave Mary ! 

My spirit prays to thee — 
Oh, sister of the angels. 
Look tenderly on me ! 



Look tenderly upon me. 

Oh, pure and radiant eyes ! 
Orbs passionate and holy. 

Where I have made my skies. 
Blue skies bend down in brightness ! 

Let thy fair and radiant face 
Beam on my soul's dark waters, 
Oh, Mary ! full of grace ! 
Ave Mary ! Ave Mary ! 

My spirit prays to thee — 
Oh, sister of the angels 
Look tenderly on me ! 



A DREAM. 43 

I would kneel for intercession 

To the saints above me now, 
But o'er all my memory's calendar 

I find no saint but thou. 
Thou to whom in secret worship 
I the strain thus fondly pour, 
From the heart that is the lute, strung 
To praise thee evermore. 
Ave Mary ! Ave Mary ! 

My spirit prays to thee — 
Oh, sister of the angels, 
Look tenderly on me ! 



A DREAM. 



Sleeping, I dreamed, love, 

A sweet, sweet dream of thee — 
Floating it seemed, love, 

O'er sunlit waves were we. 
Oh, it were bliss, love. 

Thus evermore to glide 
Over ocean with thee, love. 

Thus chnging to my side. 

Gently the wind, love. 

Played in thy golden hair ; 

Round me were twined, love, 
Thine arms than foam more fair ; 



44 A LAY. 



And while thy song, love, 
Swelled o'er the listening sea, 

Blue like the lotus, 

Beamed thy soft eyes on me. 

Soon o'er the bright waves 

Howled forth the fearful gale, 
Fiercely the lightning 

Flashed in our silken sail ; 
Yet while our frail bark 

Drove wildly o'er the sea, 
Thine eyes like load-stars 

Beamed through the gloom on me. 

Oh ! heart awaken ! 

Thy blissful dream is o'er — 
Thou art forsaken — 

Cast on deceitful shore. 
Yet as the mariner 

Clings to the wreck at sea, 
Still chngs my lone heart 

To that sweet memory. 



A LAY. 



Thou seest the spring that floweth 
In my bosom's depth profound, 

As the lapwing sees the fountain 
Hidden deep beneath the ground. 



SONG. 45 

Thou knowest how it gusheth 

Ever fi-esh, and pure, to thee ; 
As the streamlet welleth onward, 

Ever onward to the sea. 

There are flowers along the border, 

Where the happy streamlet flows ; 
Like the ever-fragrant memories 

That in my heart repose — 
But I hold the one, one thought of thee. 

To my bosom fondly prest ; \ 

As the streamlet folds the lily 

Rooted deep within its breast. 

And though some hand relentless. 

Should seek to turn the tide 
Away to bitter cisterns. 

From its constant course aside ; 
Still it gushes at the fountain, 

Ever onward to the sea ; 
As my heart's spring wells exhaustless, 

Onward, onward still to thee. 



SONG. 

They have parted for ever 
Our heart's rosy chain, 

And bound me, all helpless. 
To a love I disdain ; ' 



46 love's pleading. 



Tliey have, ruthless, bereft us 

Of the fond hope of years, 
And given my young life 

To sorrow and tears — 
Yet my heart, O beloved ! 

To thy memory clings. 
As the bird o'er her nestling 

Folds closely her wings — 
The dark clouds may gather 

Aloft in the sky, 
And the tempest toss wildly 

The branches on high ; 
But faithful and fond 

With her young 'neath her breast, 
Still fearlessly cleaveth 

The bird to her nest ; 
And thus, though in peril 

And secret it be, 
O, Bird of my breast ! 

Clings my true heart to thee. 



LOVE'S PLEADING. 

Ianthis mine, speak tender words to me ! 

Call me thy lily — thy imperial one. 
That like the Persian breathes adoringly 

Its fragrant worship ever to the sun. 

Speak tender words lest doubt with me prevail — 
Call me thy rose, thy queen rose, throned apart, 

That all unheedful of the nightingale, 

Enfolds the dew-drop to her burning heart. 



love's limning. 47 

For thou'rt the sun that makes my heaven fair, 
Thy love the blest dew that sustains me here ; 

And like the plant that has its root in au', 
I only live within thy atmosphere. 

Look on me with those soul-illumined eyes, 
And murmur low in love's entrancing tone — 

Methinks the angel-lute of Paradise 

Had never voice so thrilling as thine own ! 

Say I am dearer to thee than renown. 
My smile more treasured than the world's acclaim ; 

Call me thy laurel ! thy unfading crown, 

Wreathed in immortal glory round thy name. 

Breathe low to me each pure impassioned thought, 
While fondly thus thine arms my heart entwine ; 

Call me by all fond meanings love has wrought, 
But oh, lanthis ! ever call me thine. 



LOVE'S LIMNING. 

Shall I portray thee in thy glorious seeming. 
Thou that the Pharos of my darkness art — 

The star above life's waters ever beaming 
To guide the lonely voyager, my heart ? 

Vain were my art thy semblance, all transcendent. 
On other tablet than my heart to trace — 

As well the flower might paint the orb resplendent 
That warms its beauty into life and grace. 



48 THE SUNFLOWER TO THE SUN. 

Like the blue lotos on its own clear river, 
Lie thy soft eyes, beloved ! upon my soul ; 

And in its depths thou mirrored art for ever. 
However dark the clouds above may roll. 

Shine on me ever, thou that brightly beaming, 
The radiant Pharos of my darkness art — 

The one true star above life's watei's gleaming 
To guide the lonely voyager, my heart. 



THE SUNFLOWER TO THE SUN.* 

Hymettus' bees are out on filmy wing, 

Dim Phosphor slowly fades adown the west. 

And earth awakes, — shine on me, oh, my king ! 
For I with dew am laden and opprest. 

Long through the misty hours of morning gray 

The flowers have watched to hail thee from yon sea — 

Sad Asphodel that pines to meet thy ray, 
And Juno's roses, pale for love of thee. 

Perchance thou dalHest with the Morning Hour, 
Whose blush is reddening now the eastern wave ; 

Or to the cloud for ever leavest thy flower, 

Wiled by the glance white-footed Thetis gave. 

* Clytia, daughter of Orchamus, king of Babylon, was beloved 
by Apollo ; but the god deserting her, she pined away with con- 
tinually gazing on the sun, and was changed to the flower deno- 
minated from him, which turns as he moves, to look on his light. 



THE PRATER OF A THIRSTING HEART. 49 

I was a proud Chaldean monarch's child, 

Euphrates' waters told me I was fair ; 
And thou, Thessalia's shepherd on me smiled, 

And likened to thine own my amber hair. 

Thou art my life — sustain er of my spirit — 
Leave me not then in darkness here to pine ! 

Other hearts love thee, yet do they inherit 
A passionate devotedness like mine ? 

But lo ! thou liftest thy shield o'er yonder tide ! 

The dun clouds flee before the conquering Sun — 
Thou, hke a monarch, up the heavens dost ride, 

And, joy ! thou beamest on me, celestial one,! 

On me, thy worshipper ! thy poor Parsee ! 

Whose brow adoring types thy face divine — 
God of my burning heart's idolatry, 

Take root, like me, or give me life like thine ! 



THE PRAYER OF A THIRSTING HEART. 

" Give me a blessing. Thou hast given me a south land, give me also springs 
of water."— Judges, c. 1. v. 15. 

Thou unto whom my cry ascends in anguish, 
Where, couched among the flowers, I pining lie ; 

Behold how, 'mid their odorous scents, I languish, 
Hear my prayer ! hear, and answer, or I die ! 



60 WAITING TO CROSS THE FERRY. 

Father ! within the land that I inherit, 

While evermore the fragrant south wind blows ; 

I dwell, with heart of flame, and thirsting spirit — 
For here no stream of cooling water flows. 

Where the sweet rills through earth's deep veins are flowing, 
The hly at some hidden spring is nursed ; 

On its frail stem the asphodel is blowing. 
But I, thy child, I perish here of thirst ! 

Thou, who when pale aflfliction's sons and daughters 
Came to Bethesda's healing fount to lave. 

Saw where they watched beside the silent waters, 
And sent an angel down to touch the wave — 

Thou, who, when wandering Israel, parched and dying, 
Unto the Prophet cried in their distress ; 

Heard, and in mercy to their prayer replying, 
Bade the flood gush amid the wilderness — 

Hear me ! to thee my soul in suppliance turneth. 
Like the lorn pilgrim on the sands accurst — 

For life's sweet waters, God ! my spirit yearneth — 
Give me to drink ! I perish here of thirst. 



WAITING TO CROSS THE FERRY. 

Slowly downward, with the darkness laden, 
Rolls the river, underneath the stars ; 

Throup-h the rift the moon looks, like a maiden 
Timid, glancing through her lattice bars. 



WAITING TO CROSS THE FERRY. 61 

High on yonder shore a taper, beaming 
From a lofty casement, through the night, 

With a bright and steady radiance gleaming. 
Like a guiding beacon pours its light. 

" Ferry, ho ! " a voice, impetuous, crieth, 

Far across the waters sluggish sweep ; 
"Ay ! " the drowsy fen-yman replyeth, 

Turning muttering slow again to sleep. 

And again the voice, sonorous ringing, 

" Ferry ! " through the stillness pealeth out ; 

While the bell beside the margin sw^inging, 
Clanging mingles with the lonely shout. 

Through the darkness now the heavens veiling. 
All night long the love-lit beacon gleams — 

All night long the bell tolls on unfailing. 

While the boatman mutters, "Ay I " and dreams. 

Dreams, unmindful how the night declineth — 

How each laggard hour slow departs, 
While a fair bride for her true lord pineth. 

And the river flows between their hearts. 

Oh, ye years ! roll down beneath your sorrow — 
Though, the while, the sluggard Present sleep, 

Love, and Trust, still watching for the morrow, 
Hopeful through the gloom their vigil keep. 



62 COMING HOME. 



COMING HOME. 

A SHIP is on the Indian main — 

Be kind ye gales that round her sweep ! 

For never Spanish galleon bore 
A richer freight across the deep. 

She looseth from the orient isles, 
And like a dove comes o'er the sea ; 

And oh ! among her noble hearts 
Is one that beats for me, for me ! 

They say his cheek is bronzed, and changed, 
With burning clime and many a care; 

And he has dwelt beneath the palm 
Till silver threads are in his hair. 

Yet ever to my memory 

He comes, as Avhen in childhood's hours, 
"With ringing laugh and bounding feet 

We chased the bee among the flowers. 

But I shall know him 'mid the band 
That leap, with eager step, on shore ; 

For can my heart e'er fail to trace 
The lineaments his boyhood wore ? 

My brother — ah ! the rapid years 
Wherein we long have dwelt apart, 

May have brought shadows o'er the brow, 
But never, never o'er the heart ! 



BY THE HEARTH. 63 



Ye waves that bear mine argosy, 

Ye winds that waft her o'er the main, 

Make fleet the keel — make swift the sail 
That brings him home to me again. 



&» 



BY THE HEARTH. 

2rfie ISxitit's Ec&erte. 

Lonely to-night, oh, loved one ! is our dwelling. 

And lone and wearily has gone the day ; 
For thou, whose presence like a flood is swelling 

"With joy my life-tide — thou art far away. 

And wearily for me will go the morrow. 

While for thy voice, thy smile, I vainly yearn ; 

Oh, from fond thought some comfort I will borrow. 
To wile away the hours till thou return. 

I will remember that first, sweet revealing 

"Wherewith thy love o'er my tranced being stole ; 

I like the Pythoness enraptured, feeling 
The god divine pervading all my soul. 

I will remember each fond aspiration 

In secret mingled with thy cherished name, ' 
Till from thy lips, in wildering modulation, 

Those words of ecstasy " I love thee ! " came. 

And I will think of all our blest communing. 
And all thy low-breathed words of tenderness ; 

Thy voice to me its melody attuning 

Till every tone seemed fraught with a caress — 



64 A VOICE OF THE HEART. 

And feel thee near me, while in thought repeating 
The treasured memories thou alone dost share — 

Hark ! with hushed breath and pulses wildly beating 
I hear thy footstep bounding o'er the stair ! 

And I no longer to my heart am telling 
The weary weight of loneliness it bore ; 

For thou, whose love makes heaven within our dwelling, 
Thou art returned, and all is joy once more. 



A VOICE OF THE HEART. 

LncE the lorn bird from northern skies returning, 
To find again in summer lands its nest, 

I come, my bosom filled with lonely yearning, 
Once more, beloved ! beneath thy smile to rest. 

They gird me round, companions of my childhood, 
The friends who loved me in my infancy ; 

But as the caged bird pineth for the wild-wood, 
I pine, my cherished one ! for thee ! for thee ! 

Kind angels o'er my sleep their vigils holding. 
Bring thee to me in dreams Elysian still ; 

Again I feel thine arms my heart enfolding, 
Again to thine my pulses wildly thrill. 

And ever through the midnight hush unbroken, 
I hear thy voice low murmuring to me ; 

And all the roses thy fond lips have spoken, 
Come like sweet odors o'er my memory. 



PARTING WORDS. 65 

Where o'er my head the morning heavens are glowing, 
As if thev cauo-ht their radiance from thee, 

The autumn leaves around my pathway blowing- 
Seem murmuring " Return ! return ! " to me. 

And like the dove on tireless pinion winging, 

Within the shadow of the ark to rest ; 
To thee, to thee, my heart is wildly springing, 

To fold its cares once more upon thy breast. 



PARTING WORDS. 

The wish my fainting heart this hour betrayeth, 
The haunting thought that e'er possesses me ; 

The boon of thee my lonely spirit prayeth 
Is, that hereafter thou wilt think of me. 

Though broad the gulf our way henceforth dividing. 
Though wide our journeyings evermore, apart ; 

Yet, give mine image place with those abiding 
In the deep treasure- chambers of thy heart. 

When newer friends invite thy soul to pleasure. 
And fairer hands enwreath thy cup of glee ; 

When mirth awakes the strings to joyful measure, 
Not in that hour would I remembered be. 

When through the lone, and silent midnight gleaming, 
Some sleepless watcher marketh from afar, 

With steady radiance from thy casement beaming. 
Thy student lamp outshining like a star — 



06 IMITATION OF SAPPHO. 

And thou within, the illumined pages turning, 
By sage of old bequeathed to after kind ; 

Where through the lore of darker age is burning 
For evermore, some mighty master mind, 

Wouldst trace the soul's mysterious revealing, 
Till thought grows pale before the task sublime; 

Then let my face upon thy memory stealing, 

Beam out to thee through the dark mist of time. 

Thus, ever thus, my restless spirit chiding, 
Impels the wish I suppliant impart — 

Oh ! grant mine image place with those abiding 
Among the memories treasured in thy heart. 



IMITATION OF SAPPHO. 

If to repeat thy name when none may hear me, 
To find thy thought with all my thoughts inwove ; 

To languish where thou'rt not — to sigh when near thee- 
Oh ! if this be to love thee, I do love ! 

If when thou utterest low words of greeting, 
To feel through every vein the torrent pour ; 

Then back again the hot tide swift retreating. 
Leave me all powerless, silent as before — 

If to list breathless to thine accents falling, 

Almost to pain, upon my eager ear ; 
And fondly when alone to be recalling 

The words that I would die again to hear — 



LEONORA TO TASSO. 57 

If at tliy glance my heart all strength forsaking, 
Pant in my breast as pants the frighted dove ; 

If to think on thee ever, sleeping — waking — 
Oh ! if this be to love thee, I do love ! 



LEONORA TO TASSO. 

Ah bliss ! I dreamed of thee last night ! 

Thee, whom my heart so deifies — 
Again I met the thrilling light 

Of thy serene and earnest eyes. 

I dreamed of thee ! 0, gracious boon. 
That gladdens thus my waking hours ! 

Above us glowed Italia's noon. 

Around us breathed the scent of flowers. 

My hand lay gently clasped in thine, 
No sound disturbed our joy's excess; 

And soft thine eyes poured down on mine 
Their wildering rays of tenderness. 

" My Leonora ! " 'twas thy same 

Low voice that o'er my memory broke ; 

But as thy cherished accents came 
I murmured " Tasso I " and awoke. 

Ah, me ! awoke ! — yet all the day 

Thy presence has been round me still — 

The airs that through my lattice play. 
And toss the vines at their sweet will, 

4 



58 LEONORA THINKING OF TA8S0. 

Repeat tliy tones — and every where 
I meet thine eyes still bent on me. — 

Ah, blessed dream ! that gilds my care, 
And brightens this reality. 



LEONORA THINKING OF TASSO. 

Would I could dream of thee ! thy thought 

Is all day long before my face ; 
But envious sleep has ever brought 

Some shape thine image to displace. 

Yes ! once, once only has the night 

Wrought thy bright semblance forth to me — 
Oh ! rapturous moment of delight ! 

Would I had died, sweet dream, in thee. 

Thou, only named in thought ! from this 

Ecstatic vision slumber bore. 
The morn, impatient of my bliss, 

Unclasped my soul for evermore. 

■ Would I could dream of thee — nor pine 
With these unanswered longings rent — 

Ah me ! poor heart ! that love like thine 
Should seek with dreams to be content ! 

With dreams — and what is life, alas ! 

But of the visions that we see ? 
Shadows of love, and hope, that pass 

To mock us, like my dream of thee. 



A LEGEND. 59 



A LEGEND. 

" Sia yos, y sin Dios y mi." 

The motto that with trembling hand I write, 
And deeply traced upon this heart of mine ; 

In olden time a loyal Christian knight 
Bore graven on his shield to Palestine. 

" Sin voSy^ it saith, if I am without thee, 

Beloved ! whose thought surrounds me every where ; 

" Sin Dios,^ I am without God, " 7/ mi,''^ 
And in myself I have no longer share. 

False proved the lady, and thenceforth the knight, 
Casting aside the buckler and the brand, 

Lived an austere and lonely anchorite. 
In a drear mountain cave in Holy Land. 

There, bowed before the Virgin's shrine in prayer, 
He would dash madly down his rosary ; 

And cry " beloved ! " in tones of wild despair, 
" I have lost God and self in losing thee ! " 

And I, if thus my life's sweet hope were o'er, 
An echo of the knight's despair must be ; 

Thus I were lost if loved by thee no more, 

For, ah ! myself and heaven are merged in thee . 



60 THE OCEAN TIDE TO THE RIVULET. 



BLESS THEE. 

I MAY not break the holy spell 

Thy beauty wove around me, 
Till time shall loose the silver cord 

That long to earth has bound me. 
I see thee smile on loftier ones, 

And mark the proud caress thee ; 
Yet when my lips Avould ope to curse, 

They only ope to bless thee. 

One memory round me every where, 

One task in silence set me — 
The ceaseless, restless, thinking on. 

And striving to forget thee. 
And though for aye the goading thought 

To madness thus oppress me, 
I may not curse — I cannot hate — 

My heart still whispei-s, " Bless thee ! " 



THE OCEAN TIDE TO THE RIVULET. 

My voice is hoarse with calling to the deep. 
While, as I bore me on with measured sweep. 

To where beneath the jutting cave I rest ; 
The warring night winds smote upon my way, 
And the fierce lightnings joined in wild affray. 

And hurled their fiery javelins at my breast. 



THE OCEAN TIDE TO THE RIVULET. 01 

Night — and abroad there moves no living thing ! 
Sunk on her nest the sea-gull folds her \Ying, 

The bearded ffoat has left the cliff on hio-h, — 
Of thy fair feet the parched sand bears no trace — 
Beloved ! I wait thee at our meeting place, 

I call, but echo gives alone reply. 

To what far thicket have thy light steps won ? 
Shunning the rude gaze of the amorous sun. 

In what dark fountain does thy sweetness hide ? 
No star shines through the rift in yonder sky — 
None may behold thee where thou wanderest by — 

Bound from thy lurking forth, my woodland bride ! 

Sadly the flowers their faded petals close. 
Where on thy banks they languidly repose. 

Waiting in vain to hear thee onward press ; 
And pale Narcissus by thy margin ?ide 
Has hngered for thy coming, droopod, and died. 

Pining for thee, amid the lo'.iuliness. 

Hasten, beloved ! here, 'r.cath the o'erhauging rock — 
Hark ! from the deei\ my anxious hope to mock. 

They call me bn.kward to ni}" parent main ; 
Brighter thanT'ietis thou ! and how more fleet — 
I hear the ru ]i\ng of thy fair, white feet, 

Joy ! — joy I — my breast receives its own again ! 



02 THE wife's prater. 



THE WIFE'S PRAYER. 

Hear me! — Oh, hear me now! 
By the red flush upon thy wasted cheek — 
By the deep tracery o'er thy noble brow, 
Hear me ! bear with me, husband ! while I speak ! 

I've marked thee day by day — 
Thy hours are all of anxious, vague unrest ; 

Thine eye has caught a stern, unwonted ray, 
Thy lip has lost all memory of its jest. 

Thy wife sits pale beside, 
Thy child shrinks back appalled from thine embrace ; 

Thy menials quail before thy mien of pride. 
Thy very dog avoids thine altered face ! 

Oh ! for poor Glory's wreath, 
Casting from thee all tenderness and gladness; 

Thou trackest a phantom on, whose fiery breath 
Drieth the way founts till thou thirst to madness ! 

My prayer is all for thee — 
My life in thine ! by our remembered bliss, 

By all thine hours of watchful misery. 
What meed has fame to render thee for this ? 

If thou yet lovest me, hear ! 
Now, while thy feet press onward to the goal, 

Turn thee ! oh ! turn thee in thy stern career. 
And thrust this mad Ambition froii^ ^^^^^ soul ! 



ALONE. 63 



ALONE. 

Seul, cherchant dans I'espace un point qui me reponde." 

There lies a deep and sealed well, 
Hid in yon forest's shade profound, 

Whose pent and lonely waters swell 
Within their chill and dreary bound. 

It hears the birds on every spray 

Sing loudly o'er their love-built nest ; 

It feels the warm sun's seldom ray 

Glance on the stone above its breast — 

And quick the gladdened waters rush 
Tumultuous upward to the brink ; 

A seal is on their joyous gush. 

And back, repressed, they coldly shrink. 

Thus in their caverned space, apart. 

Closed from the eye of day, they dwell- 
Thus prisoned deep within my heart. 
The tides of quick affection swell. 

Each kindly glance — each kindly tone. 
To joys its swift pulsations sway ; 

But none may lift the veiling stone, 
And give the franchised current way. 



64 THE YOUNG WIFE. 

Smite Thou the rock, whose eye alone 
The hidden spring within may see ; 

And bid the flood, resistless one ! 
Flow forth, rejoicing, unto thee. 



THE YOUNG WIFE. 

Say not, beloved, that beauty lies 

In youth's alluring form alone- — 
That only in youth's radiant eyes 

Has Love imperial made his throne. 
For in the ray that lights thy face, 

And crowns thy brow with thought sublime. 
And wondrous loveliness, I trace 

The hand of the refiner, Time. 

I would not seek, had I the art, 

Thy vanished summers to restore ; 
Lest with each year some grace depart 

Thine early manhood never wore. 
And oh ! had I existed when 

Youth's fresh warm current flushed thy brow, 
Perchance thou hadst not sought me then. 

Nor I loved thee as I do now. 

Along the world's recorded page 
Thou with gone centuries hast trod, 

Till Wisdom hailed thee son, and sage. 
And all within thee glowed the God. 



THE CHILD OF FAME. 65 

And now, mine own ! thou comest tx) me, 
Crowned with thine age and honored name ; 

As heathen Jove to Semele, 

Arrayed in his effulgence came. 

Thy furrowed brow, thy silver hairs, 

Gained on the stirring field of life — 
These are the laurel and the scars 

Thou bearest proudly from the strife. 
And oh, ye years ! I only dread 

These traces of your swift decay. 
For that they tell, with hurrying tread 

Ye bear his cherished life away. 



THE CHILD OF FAME. 

" Je vivrai etemellement." 

La Vie db Sappho : TV. de M'me Dacier. 

Nay — call me not thy rose — thine own fair flower 
For oh ! my soul to thy wild words is mute — 

Leave me my gift of song — my glorious dower — 
My hand unchained, and free to sweep the lute. 

Thus, when within the tomb thy memory slumbers, 
Mine, mine will be of those immortal names 

Sung by the poet in undying numbers — 

Call me not thine — I am the world's and fame's ! 

Were it not blissful, when from earth we sever, 
To know that we shall leave, with bard and sage, 

A name enrolled on fame's bright scroll for ever — 
A wonder and a theme to after age ? 

4* 



66 THE IDEAL PERSONIFIED. 

Talk not of love ! I know how, wasted, broken, 
The trusting heart learns its sad lesson o'er — 

Counting the roses passion's lips have spoken. 
Amid the thorns that pierce it to the core. 

Oh, heart of miiie ! that when life's summer hour 

For thee with love's bright blossoms hung the bougli, 

Too quickly found an asp beneath the flower — 
And is naught left thee but ambition now ? 

Alas ! alas ! ray brow, its pride forsaking, 
Would give the glory of its laurel crown 

For one fond breast whereon to still its aching. 
For one true heart that I might call mine own. 



THE IDEAL PERSONIFIED. 

Like him of old, whose worship warmed 
To life the stone his chisel wrought, 

My heart a bright ideal formed, 
With all of high perfection fraught. 

Shape such as sculptor gave of yore 
To morning's God, I gave to mine ; 

Its brow immortal beauty wore, 
Irradiate with a soul divine. 

I bowed, and bade it glow, and thrill — 
But lifeless as the Parian stone. 

My idol wrought with master skill. 
Sat coldly on its burning throne. 



TEN YEARS AGO. 



6*7 



Till thou, whose name is on my tongue, 
lanthis ! wert revealed to me — 

Then, then my thought to being sprung, 
And lived for eveimore, in thee ! 



TEN YEARS AGO. 

Ten years ago ! — Ten years ! it seems 

A very holiday of time. 
Since bright romance with wildering dreams 

Beguiled my girlhood's happy prime. 

Ten years ! — thou sayest their viewless flight 
Upon my cheek has left no trace — 

Mine eye still wears its curtained light, 
My step its own elastic grace. 

And has my mien no more of care 
Than when, adown yon grassy slope. 

With foot as free as morning air, 
I bounded like the antelope ? 

Ten years have turned their daily page — 
My locks still wear their flowery crown — 

There twine no silver threads of age 
Amid these braids of raven down ! 

Unchanged to thee — unchanging aye — 
Then what the flight of time to us ? 

Our feet have trod life's pleasant way. 
And found the well of Kanathus. 



68 A ROMANCE. 

Tims many a brow a beauty wears, 
Too constant seeming, e'er to part ; 

But all ! the darksome track of years 
That Heth hidden in the heart ! 



A ROMANCE. 



I BOWED to thee in spirit, 

Like a pagan at the shrine — 
All my thought went up, like incense, 

To the one I named divine. 
But thou recklessly hast riven 

The false idol from my heart ; 
And I shame that e'er I loved thee. 

Weak and faithless as thou art. 

I deemed that He who fashioned, 

Thee all-glorious did create ; 
That thy nature, like the engle, 

Might alone with eagles mate ; 
That o'er thy broad dominion, 

As the falcon's was thy flight ; 
But thou hast stooped thy pinion. 

Like the craven-hearted kite. 

Go forth with lance and pennon, 

Where the serried spears flash bi-ight ; 

More meet for thee were silken glove. 
Than the gauntlet of the knight ! 



NARCISSUS. 69 

Thou art foremost at the banquet, 

Thou art brave in lady's bower ; 
But thy heart will quail before the trump, 

In the trying battle hour ! 

Away ! — I scorn the courtesy 

Thy lip would idly frame ; 
And palsied be thy false tongue 

When it lightly names my name ! 
Thus said fair Esperanza, 

With a proud flush on her cheek ; 
While the knight turned through the postern, 

And ne'er a word did speak. 



NARCISSUS. 



The tale of him who, the old poets tell us, 
Died at the fount, of his own face enamored. 
Broad in the noontide lay the hills of Phocis, 
Green to their summits — and within their shadows 
Reposed the violets, faint with their own odors : — 
Coiled through the valleys glittered the Cephisus, 
Basking in sunhght — and adown the meadows. 
Pale with their fragrance drooped the water-lilies : — 
Only the Asphodel, with heart adoring, 
To Phoebus lifted high her golden censer, 
Mindful that when her God adown Parnassus 
To sunset's gates should chase the flying Hours, 
And with the twilight shadows, pensive Hesper, 
Bearing his urn, should come to weep the roses, 



YO NARCISSUS. 

Her gauzy petals would upclose for ever. 

Hushed were the old woods, and the Fauns and Dryads, 

In moss-grown caves, fluslied vv'ith their dances, slumbered, 

When, through the dim glades of the silent forest. 

With antlered head, under the low boughs crashing, 

Startling affrighted Echo fi'om her hiding, 

Bounded a deer — the arrow in his shoulder — 

And fiist behind, from out the wood's recesses, 

Came the young hunter, with his swiftness panting, 

And paused, o'erspent, beside a low sweet fountain 

That mirrored clear, within its emerald border, 

The ancient oaks where slept the Hamadryads. 

Child of a river God and of a Naiad, 

Far from the founts the tender Oreads nursed him, 

For the old blind soothsayer had predicted 

The boy would die when first he looked on water. 

The sacred maids who kept the vestal fires, 

Than he were not more pure beside their altars ; 

Therefore in vain the ardent Dryads wooed him, 

And love-lorn Echo languished unregarded — 

But now transfixed above the fountain's margin, 

Where bright upgleamed a brow of girl-like beauty. 

O'er which the golden curls luxuriant clustered, 

Entranced and breathless bent the lithe young hunter, 

Of his own face, unseen till now, enamored. 

" Mother !" he said, while startled Echo listened — 

" Are these thine eyes Liriope, sweet mother ; 

That like a stag's eyes, filled with sweet wild wonder. 

Beam up to mine ? 

Or art thou Ephydatia, 
Who bore adown the tide the struggling Hylas ? 
Would I were he, to die upon thy bosom ! 



KARCISSUS. 71 

Come forth ! ah, let my heart dwell on thy sweetness ! 

Come forth ! all sleep — I only may behold thee — 

Hushed in their cool retreats the Satyrs slumber, 

"Within the oaks repose the Hamadryads, 

And even Pan, the reed dropped from his fingers, 

Rests in the shade of some Arcadian forest. 

Listen ! sweet Naiad ! Though the wood-nymphs love me, 

My heart grows cold beneath their honeyed kisses, 

Luscious as hydromel to amorous Satyrs, 

The while I rend me from their w^arm caresses. — 

Listen ! For thy sweet love alone I languish. 

For thine embrace I pine ! I pine ! " 

And Echo 
Murmured among the oaks " I pine ! " 

Day faded 
In the soft twilight — and amid their dances 
The wakened Fauns and Dryads paused to Hsten ; 
They, shrinking far within the wood's recesses, 
Heard the low moan " I pine ! " — and Echo 
Among the oaks the plaintive sound repeating, 
Till midnight slowly purpled into morning. 
And when along the hill-tops sped Aurora, 
Treading out fragrance with her rosy sandals. 
While in her foot-prints sprang anew the flowers, 
Came the soft wood-nymphs, each her urn upbearing 
On her white shoulder, to the fount for water. 
Hushed was the sound of that low, sad complaining, 
And where the glowing hunter bent at noontide. 
Shod from the chase as 'twere with Hermes' sandals, 
A new, pale flower beside the marge was rooted, 
And this the pitying maidens called Narcissus — 
For thus, they said, the Gods benign had changed him. 



72 GREEK SONG OF TRIUMPH. 

And thus, Earth, thy children vainly languish 
Above their heart-founts, that in beauty image 
Forth from their depths the spirit's bright ideal — 
Thus pine we over our reflected longing, 
And die of the yet uuattained enamored. 



GREEK SONG OF TRIUMPH. 

" "Wear the sword beneath the myrtle." 

We come — once more the land is free that bore us, 

Bring forth your myrtle garlands for our brows — 
lo triumphe ! swell the inspiring chorus ! 

Strew wide our pathway with green laurel boughs. 
Hellas is free ! let your exultant voices 

Shout " Freedom 1" o'er each glorious plain and height ; 
Let the proud Persian hear how Greece rejoices, 

The while he, humbled, mourns his broken might. 
Rejoice ! rejoice ! Lift high the song of gladness ! 

Bring forth the lyre, and wake the festal chord ; 
But ah ! remember in the wine-cup's madness. 

Beneath the myrtle still to wear the sword. 

Their golden armor in the sunlight flashing, 
Onward his thronging legions pressed in pride ; 

His countless chariots o'er the land were crashing, 
His myriad masts were bristling on the tide. 

Where are they now, with whom the Strait was swarming ? 
Where are the brazen beaks that swept the sea ? 



ATHLETE. 73 

Rejoice ! for Greece was up and boldly arming — 

Her foe is shattered, and her soil is free ! 
We bear prond trophies of his conquered power — 

Bring forth the crowns, and let the wine be poured ; 
But ah ! remember, in the festal hour, 

Beneath the myrtle still to wear the sword. 

Shout for your heroes ! swing, tlie incense o'er them ! 

Bring forth your cypress cofiins for the dead — 
Strew with proud laurel boughs the way before them — 

Pass they in triumph where their feet should tread. 
And still raise hioh the choral sons: of erladness, 

For oh, by these has Gi'eece her freedom won — 
Hark ! from his graves, above your wail of sadness, 

Cithseron calls, " Rejoice," to Marathon. 
Rejoice ! rejoice ! the heavens with light are glowing, 

For peace once more to Hellas is restored ; 
But ah ! remember, while with joy o'erflowing. 

Beneath the myrtle still to wear the sword. 



ATIILETJE. 

" Will is might."— Motto on a seal. 

Tiiou who, called to the arena, 
Doubtful shrinkest from the fight ; 

Gird thy heart, oh, vigorous Athlete, 
And bethink thee, " will is might ! " 

Strong in purpose and endeavor, 
Look thou, be not overthrown ; 



74 THE COMPLAINT OF LAIS. 

Wrestle boldly with the present, 

And the future is thine own. 
For with thews and sinews strengthened 

In the conflict with thy fate, 
Thou to will, in the hereafter, 

Destiny mayest immolate. 
Thou the beautiful pursuing. 

Hoping, doubting, free of will ; 
Following ever on the pathway 

Where the nymph eludes thee still — 
Onward, Athlete ! do not falter. 

Though she flieth far and fast ; 
Though her feet were winged, like Hermes', 

Thou shouldst win the prize at last. 
Like the Sun-god, who, pursuing 

Flying Daphne, in the chase 
Thought to clasp her, but the laurel 

Met his passionate embrace. 



THE COMPLAINT OF LAIS. 



" Je ne saurais me voir dans ce miroir ficlele 
Ni telle que j'etais, ni telle que je suls." 

AusoNius. Traduction de Voltaire. 



The song had hushed its murmurs. 
And the lyre its chords restrained. 

Where the proudest nymph in Corinth 
To her mirror thus complained — 



i 



THE COMPLAINT OF LAIS. 76 

" Oh ! ruthless, ruthless mirror ! 

How can I look on thee, 
Nor mourn the fatal ruin 

That time has wrouQ-ht in me ! 
Like the sculptured stone of Paros, 

Soft-tinged with morning's rose, 
Was my cheek, where 'mid the dimples 

The Loves no more repose — 
And a glowing charm encircled 

The graces that were mine, 
Like the passion-kindling cestus 

Of Venus, all divine. 
The victor left his olive crown 

For my entrancing wile. 
And the sage forsook his wisdom cold 

To linger in my smile. 
But alas ! alas ! my mirror ! 

The hearts that owned my sway, 
With my false and fleeting beauty 

Have passed from me away. 
Oh ! dark and fearful River ! 

Would I had crossed thy shore, 
Ere I lived to mourn the beauty 

Mine, mine, alas ! no more ! 
Ere the envious nymphs of Corinth 

Exultingly could say, 
The conquering charms of Lais 

Had passed fi-om her away. 
Oh ! evermore beside me 

The dread Alecto stands — 
The Fury with the brazen feet. 

And the viper in her hands — 



16 THE SCYTHIAN TO HIS GOBLET. 

And v/akens Avith her serpent scourge 

The memories of yore ; 
Of beauty all departed, 

And triumphs, mine no more ! " 

And thus the nymph's complaining 
Through the gorgeous chamber stole ; 

Mourn, mourn with me, oh maidens, 
The lost beauty of her soul. 



THE SCYTHIAN TO HIS GOBLET.* 

Come press my burning lips, my foe — 

Ha ! how thy kisses through me dart ! 
Brave cup ! I feel thy red life glow, 

And leap to flame within my heart. 
Kiss me again ! The hand was strong, 

And armed with might, that wrought me ill ; 
My vengeance watched above my wrong, 

That might is crushed, the hand is chill. 

Hurrah ! 

Give me the ro.ses — I would whelm 
In fragrant buds his shrivelled brow — 

How lighter than the brazen helm 
My garland binds his temples now ! 

* Tlie Scythians, according to Herodotus, used the skull of an 
enemy slain in battle for a drinking cup. It was first lined with 
gold, and wrapped about with bull's hide, which was also gilded. 
The goblet, so prepared, was used by them in ordinary, and at 
their banquets. 



MIDNKIirT ON MAI^A'^I[()N. 7*7 

Through Persian Htool, wilJi vvoiiiid lor wound. 

At last I r(!;u'.lio(l liiin on Uic ]>Iain ; 
Tlial; iii<^Iil; IJh; Iiiini^ry ])rovvlorH loiiiid 

A headlosH trunk aniouir tlio slain. 



to 



Hurrah 



Fill mo tlio wino ! I drink to her 

Who HJccps bciKiath dark ILillo's wave — 
"Why hroke my falLiiloHH HcimeUjr, 

Wlu^n hIk) bccamci tho Persian's slave? 
Revenge! revenge! Ah mk; ! no iM<)r(5 

My spear his quivering heart shall know; 
Hut on the far and soundless shore 

My arm again shall niacJi my foe ! 

Hurrah I 



MIDNKUTT ON MAIlATirON. 

'3, (Srcck J(Supcr0tit(ou. 

WirKN midnight to tiio ])easant yields 

'l\u'. meed from labor won, 
'Tift said the sleeping legions rise 

On Htoried Marathon. 

Their banner with its sacred bird 

Flung ]iroudly to the sky ; 
Down sweeps again the Athenian host, 

To conipier or to die. 

Again tlu^ air-forged falchion cleaves 

T\\(^ tiru! of the Mcide, 
And slides beneath the shadowy spear 

'i'lic Persian and his st<'<'d. 



78 MIDNIGHT ON MARATHON. 

There 'mid the pale, contending hosts, 

The watcher may behold 
The shade of Theseus lead the fight. 

As on that day of old.* 

The rush of spectral war is heard. 

And faintly on the breeze, 
' Comes from the fiercely charging band 
The cry " Miltiades ! " 

Where'er that glorious shape appears, 

Wherever sounds that cry. 
Again the phantoAi cohorts reel, 

Again they turn and fly. 

They fly, as from that field of yore 

The smitten Asian fled ; 
And Marathon lies calm once more, 

Above her silent dead. 

And thou, when darkness o'er thee lies. 

And fears to being start ; 
And strong conflicting memories rise 

From that deep grave, the heart — 

Oh Soul ! appalled with doubt and dread, 

How would all terrors fly, 
Were Faith thy leader in the fight. 

And Christ thy battle cry. 

* "It was a superstition not imeliaracteristie of that imaginative 
people, that many of them (at the battle of Marathon) fancied 
they beheld the gigantic shade of their ancestral Theseus, com- 
pletely armed, and bearing down before them uj^on the foe." 

Athens : its Rise and Fall. 



SAPPHO TO THE SIBYL. 79 



SAPPHO TO THE SIBYL. 

Beyond the hills, where flows. the Egean wave, 

I sweep the lyre amid the applauding throng- 
Tell me, dread sibyl of this mountain cave, 
Has he I love e'er listened to my song? 

For while the praise my glowing lays inspire 
In lingering ecstasy around me rings. 

For him alone I pour the song of fire 

That flows like burning lava from the strings. 

He is more glorious than the sculptured God 
Of sacred Delos — and, with step elate. 

He moves as though his airy feet had trod 
Adown the clouds from Morning's amber gate. 

I saw him borne in triumph — he had gained 
The olive chaplet in the chariot race, 

When I, whose heart a mortal's love disdained, 
Gazed with wild rapture first upon his face. 

Then, as the dew exhaleth to the light, 
To him that hour my life exhaled away ; 

And now my heart and lyre fore'er unite 
With love's bewildering madness in my lay. 

And now, dread sibyl of this mountain wild, 
I joy no longer in the applauding throng — 

Oh, say ! if ever Venus on thee smiled. 

Has he I love e'er thrilled beneath my song ? 



80 THESEUS FORSAKING ARIADNE. 



THESEUS FORSAKING ARIADNE. 

The clustering islands lay in light, 

And in the moonbeams gleamed the flood ; 

When Theseus, armed, and nerved for flight, 
Beside the slumbering Cretan stood. 

" She sleeps ! " he said ; " her romid white arm 

Soft pillowing her cheek of rose ; 
With each unveiled, unconscious charm 

Reclining there in deep repose. 

Oh ! ne'er the sea-born Citheris, 
New risen from the flashing brine, 

Upfloated to adoring eyes 
In loveliness so all divine ! 

Her perfumed breath flows calm and pure, 
No dreams of harm assail the maid ; 

She sleeps in trusting faith secure. 
To wake forsaken and betrayed. 

For sternly on my spirit falls 

The awful voice of destiny ; 
That bids me where my country calls 

Her leader, champion, king in me. 

Where on the far Cecropian height, 
His white locks floating on the gale. 

My sire awaits from morn to night. 
With weary eyes, my coming sail : 



THESEUS FORSAKING ARIADNE. 81 

What doubt his aged heart alarms, 
And thrills his veins with frantic fear, 

While I, in Love's voluptuous arms. 
Great Jove ! inglorious linger here ! 

Here, fallen beneath the Gods' disdain, 

I wake, with vigor newly fraught, 
And rive away the sensual chain 

Whose glowing links seemed TiTAN-wrought. 

Cast loose our bark ! for ere the morn 

The fates relentless I obey ; 
Leave thee, ray Cretan maid ! forlorn, 

And thee, oh Naxos ! far away. 

Away ! away, o'er yonder deep. 

Ye wind-gods ! speed our hurrying sail ; 

Ere she, abandoned, wake to weep. 

And freight with cries the morning gale. 

Lest maddening o'er her anguished lot, 

I backward turn to her alarms ; 
A.nd sire and country be forgot 

For evermore, within her arras. 



82 FORGOTTEN HEROES. 



FORGOTTEN HEROES. 

Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona 
Multi : sed omnes illachrymabiles 
Urgentur, ignotique longa 
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro. — Horace. 

Morn lay on crowned Oljaxipns' steep, 

And on Peneus' tide ; 
And the giant mists wound slowly up, 

O'er towering Ossa's side. 

And fair as in the elder time, 
Beneath spread Tempe's vale ; 

And afar flashed Glta's fabled height. 
And Malia's distant sail. 

Morning in storied Greece ! and song, 
Like a startling trumpet's clang, 

From the olive gatherers on the heights, 
Through the wavy branches rang. 

And the peasant mother at her door. 
To the babe that climbed her knee, . 

Sang aloud the land's heroic songs — 
Sang of Thermopyl99. 

Sang of Mycale, of Marathon, 

Of proud Plattea's day, 
Till the wakened hills, from peak to peak, 

Echoed the glorious lay ! 



FORGOTTEN HEROES. 83 

O godlike name ! godlike deed ! 

Song-bonie afar on every breeze — 
Ye are sounds to thrill like a battle shout, 

LeONIDAS ! MiLTIADES ! 

But they who lived ere o'er the land 
Rome's conquering cohorts poured — 

Ere the free earth echoed the charger tramp 
Of the hostile Asian horde — 

Or ere o'er fallen Ilium's domes 

High blazed her funeral pyre — 
Ages ere Chios' wondrous bard 

To heroes strung the lyre — 

Dwelt they where proud Eurotas' flood, 

The kingly river, swept ; 
Or where bright along the laurel groves 

His course Ilissus kept ? 

Where closed the fight at eve? what grove 

With songs triumphal rang, 
While high on the leafy boughs their shields 

To the coolino; breezes swanof ? 

Who were the mighty ? — Say ! — No voice 

Breaks from their hidden urns — 
From the dim, funereal cypress groves 

No answering sound returns. 

Forgotten all ! for them no bard 

The heroic lay might swell — 
There were none to raise the song for them, 

Or to strike the sounding shell. 



84 CAMEO II. 



And the land lias now no memory 

Of their old battle day — 
With the fiery breath of their charging steeds 

They have passed from earth away. 



CAMEO I. 

a (Centaur anli J3nlij of tfje Eaptt^se. 

With springing hoof that w^oiild the earth disdain, 
Broad, swelling chest, and limb with motion rife, 
From Lapitha?an banquet and the strife, 

Fleetly he bounds along Thessaha's plain. 

And on his back, in rude embrace entwined, 
A captive bride he bears. Her traitorous veil 
Reveals her brow, as Juno's roses pale, 

And floats, like scarf of Iris, on the wind. 

All vainly struggling 'gainst that bold caress, 
Her outstretched arms essay the air to grasp ; 
But firm the captor holds his iron clasp. 

And strives, with ruthless lip, her lip to press. 

Thus vice has power to sway the feeble soul, 

And bear it on in measureless control. 



CAMEO H. 

I^trtules anti ©mp^alf. 

Reclined enervate on the couch of ease, 

No more he pants for deeds of high emprise ; 
For pleasure holds in soft, voluptuous ties 

Enthralled, great Jove-descended Hercules. 



CAMEO III. 86 

The hand that boiinrl the Erymanthian boar, 
Hesperia's dragon slew, with bold intent — 
That from his quivering side in triumph rent 

The skin the Cleonaean hon wore, 

Holds forth the goblet — while the Lydian queen, 

Robed like a nymph, her brow enwreathed with vine — 
Lifts high the amphora, brimmed with rosy -wine, 

And pours the draught the crowned cup within. 

And thus the soul, abased to sensual sway, 

Its worth forsakes — its might foregoes for aye. 



CAMEO III. 

Eitjios Cj^atneli in STartarug. 

Oh! wondrous marvel of the sculptor's art! 

What cunning hand has culled thee from the mine. 
And carved thee into life, with skill divine ! 
How claims in thee humanity a part — 
Seems from the gem the form enchained, to start, 
While thus with fiery eye, and outspread wings, 
The ruthless vulture to his victim clings. 
With whetted beak deep in the quivering heart. 
Oh ! thou embodied meaning, master wrought ! 
Thus taught the sage, how, sunk in crime and sin. 
The soul a prey to conscience, writhes within 
Its fleshly bonds, enslaved : — thus ever; Thought, 
The breast's keen torturer, remorseful tears 
At life, the hell whose chain the soul in anguish wears. 



86 



THE DREAMER. 



HEART WHISPERS. 



What if he loved me ! — How the imbreathed thought 
Comes o'er me with a thrill of ecstasy ! 



And 



r'hei 



his step has brought, 



constant 

I timid shrink as he approaches me. 
Last night, when greeting words were on his lips, 

Mine ears grew deaf between my faint replies ; 
And when he pressed my trembling finger ti^^s 

I felt me turn to marble 'neath his eyes. 
What if he loved me I If 'twere mine to share 

His thought — to be of his proud being part ! 
Hush ! lest the tell-tale wind should idly bear 

To him this wild, wild beating of my heart ! 
For should he guess who in my soul has name, 
That I, unsought, love him, ah ! I should die of shame. 



THE DREAMER. 

Last night he kissed me — kissed me in my dream — 

He unto whom I, like pure flame, aspire — 
His eyes poured down on mine love's wildering beam. 

Through all my being glowed the immortal fire ; 

I felt cold doubt within my breast expire — 
I felt his clasp, as gently he enwound me, . 
I felt his heart beat as he closer bound me, 

He kissed me — measure of mv soul's desire ! 



WOULD I WERE WITH THEE. 87 

He kissed my down-clrooped eyelids — kissed my brow — 

Felt he no tlirill, my well beloved one, 
While passed the vision that enchains me now ? 

Ah, no ! the ecstasy was mine alone ! 
And while the memory on my spirit lies, 
I fear that he may read my dream within my eyes. 



HE LOVES ME. 



He loves me! It is written on my heart, 

And sealed npon my lips with his true kiss ! 
Yet what am I ? What power have I ? What art 

In me, has wrought me destiny like this? 
Perchance I'm fair — yet what were this, alas. 

To him on whom the loftiest dames have smiled. 
That he should, pleading, woo me to be his ? 

Me, who in all wise things am still a child. 
'' How lovest thou me ? " I said, " 1 who am naught — 

I, who would have no life from thine aside, 
My heart beat but when near thee — thine my thought— 

I, timid, weak — thou godlike in thy pride ! " 
" That thou art weak," he said, " do I love thee, 
And, sweet 1 I love my love because my love loves me." 



WOULD I WERE WITH THEE. 

Would I were on the boundless wave with thee ! 
This city, with its turmoil and its strife, 
With all the throbbing pulses of its life, 

Too sternly comes between thy heart and me. 



88 THY KISS. 

Would I wore with thee on the boundless sea ! 
There, when the adverse current would prevail, 
Love's favoring breath would fill our silken sail, 

And waft us gently o'er the immensity. 

Oh ! I am like that daughter of the sea 
In whose frail being love infused a soul — 
Thus through her life the immortal essence stole 

"Which gave her portion in the Deity. 

Thus I, whose spirit owns thy blest control, 

Seem nearer brought to God in loving thee. 



THY KISS. 



I HAD heaped high o'er all my love for thee 

The dark, cold, life-long ashes of my heart; 
So deep it lay, I deemed no memory 

Of that so buried e'er to light would start. 
The hopes I planted there, and tended well, 

Withered and died, for all was chill beneath ; 
How could the germ of gladness warm and swell. 

And burst to flower above the soil of death ? 
But now, to-day, I throb with life again — 

What power has kindled thus anew the fire? 
Thy kiss ! thy kiss, it burns in every vein ! 

And I, like earth of old, in darkness dire. 
Lit from the Sun-god's chariot wheels once more, 
Glow with such bliss as all my being thrilled of yore. 



TO A DIVINE. 89 



TO DANIEL WEBSTER. 

The lofty pine that tops our northern hills, 

And boldly rears its column to the sky ; 

That, when the strong-armed gale the valley fills, 

Lifting the stately cedars from on high. 

Does with a giant heart its rage defy ; 

Grasps with a vigorous root the kindred soil, 

And with the tempest battles mightily — 

That, still unbowed amid the wild turmoil, 

Stands when the angry storm has spent its wrath. 

With sunbeams crowned, beneath the brightening sky. 

And high above the swollen torrent's path 

Still towers erect in unscathed majesty — 

The mountain pine, the brave and hardy tree, 

Oh, patriot heart ! an emblem is of thee ! 



TO A DIVINE. 



Lo ! where it stands, the green, life-giving tree, 
' Mid the pure garden of thy noble faith. 
Where thou, unwearied, treadest the onward path. 

And Moses and Elias talk with thee. 

Droop we beneath the cloud despondingly, 
Thy voice its cheering influence imparts, 
And we arise, and girding up our hearts. 

Go forth in hope to win eternity. — 

6* 



90 CATTLE IN SUMMER. 

Behold ! to thee is given a tongue of fire ! 
Thou speakest wisdom to the ear of youth, 
And age takes counsel from thy lip of truth, 

And each with faith thy teaching doth inspire. 

By this we know the light thou hast divine — 

Oh, may our darkened souls new lustre gain from thine. 



CATTLE IN SUMMER. 

Here, panting with the noontide's ardent rays, 

Oh, patient cattle with 3"our dreamy eyes ; 
Ye bear me backward to old heathen days. 

The turfy altar and the sacrifice ; 
The mik- white oxen with their heavy feet, 

Dragging the car-throned priestess to the field- 
The sportive daring of the bold Athlete, 

The olive chaplet and the brazen shield : 
Or haply, when adored with sacred rite, 

Thou wert thyself an old world Deity 
Egyptian Apis — and the Israelite, 

His God forsaking, suppliant bowed to thee. 
Now, yoked to toil beneath the goad and frown. 
Ye share the lot of man — life's up and down. 



WITHIN THE world's DREAD FURNACE. 91 



TO A FRIEND. 

Grieve not that any misinterpret thee, 

O friend ! for hearest thou not, amid the crowd, 
The feeble voices murmuring aloud 
A blessing on thy brave philanthropy ? 
Remember that our dear Lord had his Jew, 
Mahomet had his Koreish — Luther, too. 
Had Rome's loud ban for his apostasy — 
And thou — bear on, the world has need of thee ! 
Has need of thee, yet for her old creeds' sake, 
For the Reformer still has fire and stake ; 

But the Reform defieth her decree. 
Then, like the Roman in the hour of fear. 
Who felt a God lay couched within his spear, 
Bear on — thy purpose has a deity. 



WITHIN THE WORLD'S DREAD FURNACE. 

Within the world's dread furnace we are cast — 
The furnace seven times heated — but we tread. 
By a good angel still accompanied. 

The fiery way unscathed, where men, aghast, 

Fall powerless before the scorching blast 

That toucheth not our garments. We have said, 
Not to your idols, but our God, instead. 

We bow. Ye wake the dulcimer, and fast. 



92 HAROLD THE VALIANT. 

Fanning the ardent air with snowy plumes, 

And cheering with sweet words our fainting souls ; 
On, through surrounding flame that none consumes, 

The angel guideth us among the coals, 

Till, like base ore in the alembic tried, 

We do come forth the fire, refined and purified. 



HAROLD THE VALIANT. 

I 'mid the hills was born, 

Where the skilled bowmen 
Send, with unerring shaft, 

Death to the foemen. 
But I love to steer my bark, 

To fear a stranger, 
Over the Maelstroom's edge, 

Daring the danger. 
And where the mariner 

Paleth aflfrighted, 
Over the sunken rocks 

I dash on delighted. 
The far waters know my keel,- 

No tide restrains me ; 
But ah ! a Russian maid 

Coldly disdains me. 

Once round Sicilians isle 

Sailed I, unfearing ; 
Conflict was on my prow, 

Glory was steering. 



HAROLD THE VALIANT. 98 

Where fled the stranger ship 

Wildly before me, 
Down, like the hungry hawk, 

My vessel bore me ; 
We carved on the craven's deck 

The red runes of slaughter — 
When my bird whets her beak 

I give no quarter. 
The far waters know my keel, 

No tide restrains me; 
But ah ! a Russian maid 

Coldly disdains me. 

Countless as spears of grain, 

Stood the warriors of Drontheim, 
When hke the hurricane 

I swept down upon them ! 
Like chaff beneath the flail 

They fell in their numbers — 
Then- king with the golden hair 

I sent to his slumbers. 
I love the combat fierce, 

No fear restrains me ; 
But ah ! a Russian maid 

Coldly disdains me. 

Once o'er the Baltic Sea 

Swift we were dashing ; 
Bright on our twenty speare 

Sunlight was flashing ; 
When through the Skagerack 

The storm-wind was driven, 
And from our bending mast 

The broad sail was riven : 



94 HAROLD THE VALIANT. 

Then, while the angry brine 

Foamed like a flagon, 
Brimfull the yesty rhime 

Filled our brown dragon ; 
But I, with sinewy hand 

Strengthened in slaughter. 
Forth from the straining ship 

Bailed the dun water. 
The wild waters know my keel, 

No storm restrains me ; 
But ah ! a Russian maid 

Coldly disdains me. 

Firmly I curb my steed, 

As e'er Thracian horseman ; 
My hand throws the javehn true, 

Pride of the Norseman ; 
And the bold skater marks. 

While his lips quiver. 
Where o'er the bending ice 

I skim the river : 
Forth to my rapid oar 

The boat swiftly springeth — 
Springs like the mettled steed 

When the spur stingeth ; 
And valiant I am in fight, 

No fear restrains me ; 
But ah ! a Russian maid 

Coldly disdains me. 

Says she, the maiden fair, 
The Norsemen are cravens ? 

1 in the Southland gave 
A feast to the ravens 1 



HAROLD IN CAPTIVITY. 96 

Green lay the sward outspread, 

The bright sun was o'er us, 
When the strong fighting men 

Rushed down before us. 
Midway to meet the shock 

My courser bore me, 
And hke Thor's hammer crashed 

My strong hand before me — 
Left we their maids in tears, 

Their city in embers — 
The sound of the Viking's spears 

The Southland remembers ! 
I love the combat fierce, 

No fear restrains me ; 
But ah ! a Russian maid 

Coldly disdains me. 



HAROLD IN CAPTIVITY.^' 

The fair Norland maidens 

Look out o'er the main ; 
Their blue eyes still watch for 

My coming in vain. 

• Harold Hadrada, a celebrated warrior and viking, and a competitor of Mag- 
nus (his nephew) for the throne of Norway, sought an asylum in Russia, where 
he became enamored of Elisif, the daughter of the Grand Duke, Jarislauf ; but, 
being unsuccessful in his suit, he pursued his way to Constantinople, where he 
entered the service of Constantinus Monomachus, as an officer of his Scandina- 
vian body guard, the Voerinjar. After numerous heroic adventures by sea and 
land, he became desirous of returning to his native country ; but the Empress 
Zoe, who had conceived a violent passion for the hero, and wishing to retard his 
departure, caused him to be imprisoned, falsely charging him with embezzling 
the portion of the royal booty taken in war. Harold, who was a Skald, and a 
liberal patron of the Skaldic art, is said during his imprisonment, to have be- 
guiled the hours of his captivity by reciting his deeds of heroism that had failed 
to impress the heart of Elisif.— iSe« Wheatoji'fi 2forthmen. 



96 HAROLD IN CAPTIVITY. 

They look for my bark 

Round the headland to steer, 

They look for the flashing 
Of helmet and spear. 

Oh, land of the valiant ! 

In visions to me 
Your snow-covered mountains 

Uplift o'er the sea — ■ 
I hear the loud suro-e 

On Luftbden's dark rocks, 
And the whirl of the Maelstroom 

My heart-yearning mocks. 

My foes, all unfearing. 

Over ocean career, 
While with gyves and with falsehood 

They fetter me here ; 
And the Maid of the Baltic 

Will hear with disdain 
Of the proud faith of Harold, 

His dunofeon and chain. 



is 



I wooed her with glory, 

As a hero should do ; 
My raven to conflict 

And victory flew. 
Till the cheek of the foeman 

Grew pale at my name; 
But the proud maiden scorneth 

Mv love and mv fame. 

Ho! cast loose my dragon, 
Spread her wings to the blast. 



DRIFT-WOOD. 97 

Let my bold raven flutter 

Once more from the mast, 
And the false Greek will tremble 

At thought of my chain, 
When our spears, like the North-lights, 

Shall flash o'er the main. 

Say, heart, to the maiden. 

Oh ! bright as the morn ! 
Farewell to thy beauty. 

Farewell to thy scorn ; 
My pulse will bound freely 

Henceforth, as the tide ; 
And be Glory the charmer 

I woo for my bride ! 



DRIFT-WOOD. 

The fire in the hut of the wrecker 

Gleams out throuo^h the darkness of nisfht. 

From the hearth where the drift-wood upblazes. 
And the children sit round in the lisfht. 

" Now, grandfather Erie, a story ! " 

The children all echo in glee ; 
" Tell the tale you once told of the viking. 

And the drift-wood he cast in the sea." 

There was once, O, my children, in Norway, 
A viking, who loosed from the strand, 

Bearing with him, in anger, the door-posts 
Of the tem|)le of Thor from the land. 



98 Finn's saga. 

And when be lost sight of the mountains, 
He cast forth the posts on the sea, 

And said, " I will follow this drift-wood 
Wherever its guiding may be." 

Thus on, day and night, sailed the viking, 
While his raven flew high on the mast ; 

Till one morn on the far shores of Iceland, 
The door-posts upfloated at last. 

And there be again reared the pillars 
Of the temple of Thor on the strand ; 

And there, when in time came his people, 
He long ruled in peace o'er the land. 

And tbus in our manhood, my children, 
We launch forth our hopes on life's tide ; 

And follow tbem daringly onward, 
How widely soe'er they may guide. 

And percbance they may lead us to honor, 
Or perchance they may falsely invite 

Where at last we lie stranded and shattered, 
Like the drift-wood we sit by to-night. 



FINN'S SAGA. 



Brave Finn of tbe Northland, renowned in story. 
Sat high at tbe Yule-feast, in his locks thin and hoary; 
Deep runes carved in fight on his broad brow he beareth. 
And the Arm of the Lightning is the good sword he weai*eth. 



FINN S SAGA. 99 

And iate flowed the banquet by the torch-fires upblazing, 

While the Skalds smote their high harps, their loud songs 
upraising. 

Pushed the chief back the goblet — " Ho ! heard ye my 
Norsemen ? 

There went sounds on the night-wind, a tramp as of horse- 
men ! " 



Down rang the drained mead-cups, the grasped sword-hilts 
rattle, 

Bounds each knio-ht like a war-horse that afar scents the 
battle ; 

And forth from its scabbai'd each quick blade is bright- 
ening. 

As forth from the storm-cloud leaps and flashes the light- 
nino\ 



Spoke the chief — " In the shade now tall forms are ad- 
vancing. 

And their wan hands like snow-flakes in the moonlight are 
glancing ; 

They beckon, they whisper, ' Oh ! Strong-Armed in Valor, 

The pale guests await thee — mead foams in Valhalla 1' " 



" When the snow melts in spring-time from earth, who be- 
wails it ? 
When the Valkyries beckon, man must die — what avails it ! 
I am bowed low with years, like a fruit-tree o'erladen. 
But a death on the straw-couch were a death for a maiden. 



100 Finn's saga. 

" Bring hither my helmet, in the torchlight that glances, 
And my shield that has borne back in fight the strong 

lances ; 
Thus may Death, that eluded where a warrior would greet 

hitn. 
Find me armed by the hearth-stone, and ready to meet him. 

" When in the Hereafter the tongue of the foeman 
Tells that Finn by the fireside died the death of a woman ; 
Like his steed in the manger awaiting the slayer, 
Ye shall say how I fearlessly met the betrayer." 

Now, while o'er his white beard the life-tide is brightening, 
As his death-runes he carveth with the Arm of the Light- 
ning, 
He lifts high the goblet, and boldly and proudly, 
" A health to the Northland ! " he quafteth full loudly. 

Oh, coldly the shadows o'er the Yule-feast are creeping, 
And the guests hush their wassail where the pale king is 

sleeping ; 
And the Skalds sweep their high harps to the Strong- 

Armed in Valor, 
While his shade o'er the rainbow passes on to Valhalla. 

And thou, oh, my spirit ! let no terror appall thee 
When afar from life's battle the pale shadows call thee — 
Be Faith thy strong buckler, good Conscience thine armour. 
Thus gird thee and fearlessly meet the Alarraer ! 



REGNER LODBROG. 101 



REGNER LODBROG * 



From Mr. Mallet's translation of the Edda of the Icelanders, in his " Introd de 
Vhistoire de Dannemarc." 



We fought with swords when I 

Led in youth against the East, 
And. the lean wolves, gathered o'er their prey, 

Fed full upon the feast. 
Like one vast wound that eve, 

In the twilight lay the main ; 
And the fierce and hungry ravens swam 

Li the life-blood of the slain. 

We fought with swords when I, 

In all their iron gear. 
Sent the hostile chiefs of Helsinger 

To Odin's halls of cheer. 
Then away to Ifa's coast 

Our broad-winged vessels bore ; 
Where we mowed, like ripened grass, the host 

That met us on the shore. 



* Regiier Lodbrog, a famous warrior, poet, and pirate, reigned 
in Denmark near tlie beginning of the ninth century. After divera 
maritime expeditions, he was taken in combat by his enemy, the 
Anglo-Saxon King Ella, and perished by the bite of serpents, with 
which they had filled his prison. This ode, dictated by the fanati- 
cism of glory and religion, was composed amid the torments which 
preceded his death. The sons of Regner avenged his horrible 
death as he has predicted in this poem. — M. Mallet, trans. 



102 REGKER LODBROG. 

Upon their battered shields 
Our sword-blows fell like hail ; 

And the iron of our smoking spears 
Pierced through their ringing mail. 

We fought with swords that day, 

Where a British headland rose ; 
Where amid the carnage lifeless lay 

Ten thousand of my foes. 
Then at their iron helms 

Our death-sped arrows flew — 
And downward from our darkened blades, 

The warm blood dripped like dew. 
My soul is fierce with joy 

When I see the foeman's face ; 
And, swifter than to clasp a maid, 

I rush to his embrace. 

We fought with swords. The youth 

Who had sought the maidens fair, 
Beneath the stroke of my red brand. 

Fell in his golden liair. 
What is a warrior's fate, 

If it be not thus to die. 
Where the battle-axe cleaves down the shield. 

And the well sped javelins fly ? 
For the coward never knows 

The pride that scars impart, 
Nor the quenchless thirst for daring deeds 

That fills a hero's heart. 

We fought with swords. The youth 
Should know no craven fear ; 



REGNER LODBROG. 108 

He slioukl early learn to dye in blood 

The iron of his spear. 
For the hero never quails, 

His hand is swift to smite — 
And the one who seeks a maiden's heart 

Should be foremost in the fight. 

AVe fought with swords that day 

When I fell upon the plain, 
And the dead that lay around, beneath, 

"Were the foes my hand had slain. 
But the stern, relentless fates 

My destiny had wrought — 
And by Ella's hand I the death receive 

That in battle lono; I soui^ht. 
Their ships went shuddering down, 

Where the Scotic waves flowed red. 
And the gaunt wolves scented from afar 

The banquet I had spread. 

We fouofht with swords — but now 

My life-tide runneth fast, 
For a poisonous viper on my heart 

To-night makes his repast. 
To the banquet of the gods 

The pale Valkyiiur call — 
For me, for me the feast is spread 

To-night, in Odin's hall ! 
In Odin's halls of cheer, 

Where the souls of heroes wait, 
There I shall quaff the foaming ale 

From the skulls of foes I hate ! 



104 REGNER LODBROG. 

If my valiant sons could know 

The torments of my cell, 
Revenge would fire their dauntless hearts, 

That blood alone could quell. 
But the rage of their young breasts 

Will awaken unrestrained ; 
And the iron of their spears will soon 

With Ella's blood be stained. 

We fought with swords, and far 

Our flags in battle bore — 
I in my boyhood learned to dye 

My lance in crimson gore. 
I have never known a king 

Than I more brave and bold. 
And I smile amid my pain to know 

My hours of life are told. 
But Odin's daughters wait, 

A hero's death I die — 
And I shall feast with gods to-night, 

Where the ale is foaming high. 



THE FIRE OF PEACE. 105 



THE FIRE OF PEACE * 

Be told amid the household band, 

By the hearth-fire's cheering ray, 
How the Druids ruled in our motherland 

In Britain's olden day. 
On the Holy-eve at twihght's hour 

The tapers gave no light, 
And quenched were the fires in cot and tower 

Through all the land that night. 

For the Druid, when the morn should beam, 

Would light the sacred brand, 
To kindle again with ruddy gleam 

The hearth-stones of the land. 
And when the morn in radiance broke 

From gloom of night profound. 
The Druid waited beneath the oak. 

His brow with vervain crowned — 

And uj) from the assembled throng 

Rose many a tale of crime. 
For the Druids ruled her people long 

In Britain's olden time. 



* The Samhuin, hterally "The Fire of Peace," vras a festival cel- 
ebrated annually among the ancient Britons. The time corres- 
ponds to our All-IIallowmas ; and it is said that even now, in 
some parts of Scotland, it would be difficult to obtain a brand to 
relight a fire accidentally extinguished on All-Hallowe'en. 
6 



106 THE FIRE OF PEACE. 

And fire was given again to all 

Who blamelessly had striven, 
But the dai'kened hearth and shadov^^ wall 

Was the doom of the unforgiven. 

Ah ! woe for her, the true and tried, 

Who in that lot had part ! 
With the Fire of Peace to her hearth denied, 

And the ashes in her heart. 
Woe for the mother doomed to weep 

The pale child to her pressed. 
As she felt the chill through its pulses creep, 

And the hush of its o:uileless breast. 



& 



And for her who w^atched, though all forsook, 

By the darkened couch of pain, 
And tearful sought for the last fond look 

From the closing eye in vain : 
They dwelt where happy homes glowed bright, 

Where the song at evening burst, 
But no pitying hand might the fagot light 

On the hearth of the accursed. 

Thus, oft amid the gathered band, 

Be told in this our clime. 
How the Druids ruled in our motherland, 

In Britain's olden time. 
And though their power has passed awa}'', 

Yet still the hand we trust 
Gives the Fire of Peace, in our Christian day, 

To the hearth-stones of the just. 



A YARN. 107 



A YARN. 

'''Tis Saturday night, and our watcli below, — 
What heed we, boys, how the breezes blow, 
While our cans are brimmed with the sparkling flow ! 
Come, Jack — uncoil, as we pass the grog, 
And spin us a yarn from memory's log." 

Jack's brawny chest like the broad sea heaved, 
While his loving Hp to the beaker cleaved ; 
And he drew his tarred and well-saved sleeve 
Across his mouth, as he drained the can. 
And thus to his listening mates began : — 

" When T sailed a bo}^, in the schooner Mike, 

No bigger, I trow, than a marlinspike — 

But I've told ye the tale ere now, belike ? " 

" Go on ! " each voice re-echoed, 

And the tar thrice hemmed, and thus he said : — 

"A staunch built craft as the waves e'er bore ! — 
We had loosed our sails for home once more, 
Freighted full deep from Labrador, 
When a cloud one night rose on our lee, 
That the heart of the stoutest quailed to see. 

" And voices wild with the winds were blent, 
As our bark her prow to the waters bent ; 
And the seamen muttered their discontent — 
Muttered and nodded ominously. 
But the mate, right carelessly whistled he. 



108 A YARN. 

" ' Our bark may never outride the gale — 

' Tis a pitiless niglit ! the pattering hail 

Has coated each spar as it were in mail ; 

And our sails are riven before the breeze, 

While our cordage and shrouds into icicles freeze ! ' 

" Thus spoke the skipper beside the mast, 
"While the arrowy sleet fell thick and fast ; 
And our bark drove onward before the blast 
That goaded the waves, till the angry main 
Rose up and strove with the hurricane. 

" Up spoke the mate, and his tone was gay — 
' Shall we, at this hour, to fear give way ? 
We must labor, in sooth, as well as pray ! 
Out, shipmates, and grapple home yonder sail, 
That flutters in ribbons before the gale ! ' 

" Loud swelled the tempest, and rose the shriek — 
* Save ! save ! — we are sinking ! — A leak ! A leak ! ' 
And the hale old skipper's tawny cheek 
Was cold, as if sculptured in marble there. 
And white as the foam, or his own white hair. 

" The wind piped shrilly — the wind piped loud — 
It shrieked in the cordage — it howled in the shroud ; 
And the sleet fell thick from the cold, dun cloud — 
But high over all, in tones of glee. 
The voice of the mate rang cheerily — 

" ' Now, men, for your wives' and your sweethearts' sakes ! 
Cheer ! messmates, cheer ! — quick ! man the brakes ! 
We will gain on the leak ere the skipper wakes ! 
And though our peril your hearts appal. 
Ere the morrow dawns we will laugh at the squall ! ' 



A YARN. 109 

" He railed at tlie tempest, he laughed at its threats, 
He played with his iniigers like castanets ; 
Yet think not that he, in his mirth, forgets 
That the plank he is riding this hour at sea, 
Mav launch him the next to eternity ! 

" The white-haired skipper turned away, 
And lifted his hands, as if 'twere to pray ; 
But his look spoke plainly as look could say, 
The boastful thought of the Pharisee — 
' Thank God ! I'm not hardened as others be ! ' 

" But the morning dawned, and the waves sank low, 
And the winds, o'erwearied, forbore to blow ; 
And our bark lay there in the golden glow — 
Flashing she lay in the bright sunshine. 
An ice-sheathed hulk on the cold, still brine. 

" Well, shipmates, my yarn is almost spun — 
The cold and the tempest their work had done, 
And I was the last, lone, living one. 
Clinging, benumbed, to that wave-girt wreck. 
While the dead around me bestrewed the deck. 

" Yea, the dead were round me eveiy where ! 

The skipper gray, in the sunlight there, 

Still lifted his paralyzed hands in prayer ; 

And the mate, whose tones through the darkness leapt. 

In the silent hush of the morning, slept. 

" Oh ! bravely he perished who sought to save 
Our storm-tossed bark from the pitiless wave, 
And her crew from a yawning, and fathomless grave ; 
Crying, ' Messmates, cheer ! ' with a bright, glad smile. 
And praying, ' Be merciful, God ! ' the while. 



1 10 THE MATE. 

" Triio to his ti'ust, to his last chill gasp, 
The helm lay clutched in his stiff, cold grasp; 
You might scarcely in death undo the clasp — 
And his crisp bi'own locks were dank and thin, 
And the icicles hung from his bearded chin. 

" My timbers have weathered since, many a gale — 
And when life's tempests this hulk assail. 
And the binnacle lamp in my breast burns pale, 
' Cheer ! messmate, cheer ! ' to my heart I say, 
' We must labor, in sooth, as well as pray ! ' " 



THE MATE. 



The wind is loudly piping. 

Like a boatswain in the gale. 
And the fisherman in yonder bay 

Is taking in his sail — 
The gull is springing upward 

From the water's whitening crest; 
And, winging toward the headland, 

Flies screamino; to her nest. 



& 



I have a noble brother, 

A mariner is he ; 
Therefore my prayer goes ever forth 

With the sailor on the sea. 
He has been long a voyager, 

And wondrous tales can tell 
Of lands to us like fable, 

And hap that him befell. 



THE MATE. HI 

On the burning Indian Ocean 

He lias chased the spouting whale, 
And amid the Polar ice-fields 

He has furled the frozen sail ; 
And on our far northwestern coast, 

Where the trapper sets his snare, 
With the savage he has hunted 

The buffalo and bear. 

He was but young, my brother — 

His years were scarce a score, 
When, crowned as now with whitened liair, 

He first came back to shore. 
He was gaunt like to an Arab, 

With bronzed and wasted cheek ; 
For the captain was a craven, 

And the good ship sprung a leak. 

Upon the broad Atlantic 

Arose a sudden blast ; 
It rent her flowing topsail, 

And wrenched away the mast. 
They gave the sea her lading, 

And the anchors from her prow, 
And di-ew the strong new mainsail 

O'er the leak beneath her bow. 

He was the mate, my brother — 

And so he spoke with glee, 
While the captain sat all downcast. 

With his hands clasped round his knee — 
' Ho ! man the pumps, my messmates ! 

Work with a willing hand. 
And the faithful Pilot overhead 

Will bring us safe to land ! ' 



112 THE LAUNCH. 

They wrought both late and early, 

To keep the good ship free, 
While the captain sat all downcast, 

With his hands clasped round his knee. 
But the men grew faint and fearful, 

Till the mate alone stood there ; 
With his young heart full of courage. 

And his young head white with care. 

For he thought upon his mother, 

And the sinew^s of his hand 
Grew strong beneath her fancied clasp, 

And thus they came to land. 
And now, when swells the tempest, 

We hush our household glee, 
While our prayers go with the mariner 

Abroad upon the sea. 



THE LAUNCH. 

A SOUND through old Trimountain went, 

A voice to great and small, 
That told of feast and merriment, 

And welcome kind to all. 
And there was gathering in the hall, 

And gathering on the strand; 
And many a heart beat anxiously 

That morning on the sand. 



THE LAUNCH. 



113 



For 'tis the mom when Ocean tide, 

An hundred tongues record, 
Shall wed the daughter of the Oak — 

The mighty forest lord. 

They dressed the bride in streamers gay. 

Her beauty to enhance ; 
And o'er her hung Columbia's stars, 

And the tri-fold flag of France — 
They decked her prow with rare device. 

With wealth of carving good ; 
And they girt her with a golden zone, 

The Maiden of the Wood. 



The gay tones of the artisan 

Fell lightly on the ear, 
And sound of vigorous hammer stroke 

Rang loudly out and clear ; 
And stout arms swayed the ponderous sledge. 

While a shout the hills awoke, 
As forth to meet the bridegroom flood 

Swept the daughter of the Oak. 



And bending to the jewelled spray 

That rose her step to greet, 
She dashed aside the yesty waves 

That gathered round her feet ; 
And down her path right gracefully, 

The queenly maiden pressed. 
Till the royal Ocean clasped her form 

To his broad and heaving breast. 

6* 



114 GOD BLESS THE MARINER. 

God guide thee o'er tlie trackless deep, 
My brother — brave and true; 

God speed the good Damascus well, 
And shield her daring crew. 



GOD BLESS THE MARINER. 

God's blessing on the Mariner ! 

A venturous life leads he — 
What reck the landsmen of their toil, 

Who dwell upon the sea ? 

The landsman sits within his home, 
His fireside bright and warm ; 

Nor asks how fares the mariner 
All night amid the storm. 

God bless the hardy Mariner ! 

A homely garb wears he, 
And he goeth with a rolling gait, 

Like a ship upon the sea. 

He has piped the loud " Ay, ay, sir ! " 
O'er the voices of the main, 

Till his deep tones have the hoarseness 
Of the rising hurricane. 

His seamed and honest visage 
The sun and wind have tanned, 

And hard as iron gauntlet 

Is his broad and sinewy hand. 



THE PILOT. 115 

But oh ! a spirit looketli 

From out bis clear, blue eye, 
Witb a trutbful, cbildlike earnestness, 

Like an angel from tbe sky. 

A venturous life tbe sailor leads 

Between tbe sky and sea — 
But when tbe hour of dread is past, 

A merrier who, than he ? 

He knows that by tbe rudder bands 

Stands one well skilled to save ; 
For a strong band is tbe Steersman's 

That directs bim o'er the wave. 



THE PILOT. 



*' Furl the sail ! — Mind the helm ! 

Steer for yon islet, 
Ere the storm overwhelm ! " 

Shouted tbe pilot. 
" Look ! how the hurricane, 

Swift o'er the water. 
Drives tbe wild, foaming main 

On to tbe slausrhter ! 



O' 



" Now, with ensanguined spears 

Ruthlessly reeking, 
Far round tbe headland steers 

Olauf tbe sea-king ! 



116 THE POOR, GOD II ELI' TIIEM. 

Dark runes are on his deck, 
Wide flies his raven — 

Wouldst thou 'scape foe and wreck 
Make for the haven ! " 

Thou, spirit! passion-tossed, 

Shipwreck before thee ; 
Furl the sail ere thou 'rt lost — 

Think, God is o'er thee ! 
Fly the dread rover Sin — 

Hark ! how the Pilot 
Cries from thy soul within 

" Steer for the islet ! " 



THE POOR, GOD HELP THEM. 

Old Winter comes with a stealthy tread. 

O'er the fallen autumn leaves, 
And shrilly lie whistleth overhead, 

And pipetli beneath the eaves. 
Let him come ! w^e care not amid our mirth. 

For the driving snow or rain ; 
For little reck we of the cheei-less hearth, 

Or the broken window pane. 

'Tis a stormy night, but our glee shall mock 

At the winds that loudly prate. 
As they echo the moan of the poor that knock 

With their cold hands at our gate. 



THE POOR man's DOINGS. Hl^ 

The poor ! we give them the half-picked bone, 

And the dry and mildewed bread ; 
Ah ! they never, God help them, know the pain 

Of being over-fed. 

Fill round again with cheering wine, 

While the fire glows warm and bright ; 
And sing me a song, sweet heart of mine, 

Ere you whisper the words " Good night ! " 
You never will dream, 'neath the covering warm 

Of your soft and curtained bed, 
Of the scanty rug and the shivering form, 

And the yawning roof overhead. 

The poor 1 God pity them in their need ! 

We've a prayer for their every groan ; 
They ask us with outstretched hands for bread, 

And we carelessly give a stone. 
God help them ! God help us ! for much we lack, 

Though lofty and rich we be ; 
And open our hearts unto all that knock 

With the cry of charity. 



THE POOR MAN'S DOINGS. 

Oh, what were the pride of the rich man's gold, 
Or the worth of each uncleared rood, 

Were it not for the needy, hard-handed poor, 
Who toil for their daily food. 



118 THE POOR man's DOINGS. 

Whatever of labor the rich man needs, 
From the poor man's hand must come — 

From the cradle rare of the new-born heir, 
To the coflSn and sculptured tomb. 

The poor man swayeth the settler's axe, 

Till the forests far retire ; 
And the city springs on its phoenix wings 

O'er the brands of the log-house fire. 

He bandeth the earth with iron roads, 
And the steam-fed courser guides ; 

And fearlessly he drives the steeds of the sea 
Wherever the rich man rides. 

He tills the plain till the ripened grain 

Is safe in the garner stored ; 
And with rifle and snare he hunteth the fare 

That smokes on the rich man's board. 

He twineth the costly robes of pride, 

And reareth the stately dome ; 
And cleaves from the clod the marble god 

That stands in the rich man's home. 

The gauds of beauty, the work of art, 
Whatever your wealth has bought — 

Nay — the very gold that your coffers hold 
The poor man's hand has wrought. 

Then health to the rude and thrifty poor. 

And honor them evermore ; 
They 'mid the turmoil, earn the wages of toil, 

As your fathers did before. 



119 



And think the. reward of labor is health, 

That wealth is industry's friend, 
That change is earth's law, and soon the see-saw 

May rise at the poor man's end. 



GENTILITY'S POOR. 

Oh ! not the beggar who seeks your door. 

In his tatters, unshamed, bedight ; 
But Gentility's sensitive, pride-ridden poor 

Shall waken my song to-night. 

For boldly the beggar may wear his rags 

In the crowded and sunlit street ; 
And bold at your portal he knocks, and begs 

For raiment and food to eat. 

I know he is friendless and starved and cold, 
And the storm whistles through the chinks ; 

But never he hoardeth his want untold, 
Nor fears what his neighbor thinks. 

And never he shrinks in the world's turmoil, 

Where Gentility strives for bread ; 
And nothino: he knows of the wearisome toil 

Of the secret needle and thread. 

The beggar is houseless, outcast, forlorn, 

Too wretched to need your curse ; 
But he knows not the dun and heeds not the scorn 

That awaits on an empty purse. 



120 A PLEA FOR THE RICH MAN. 

Tlie bet»:ii'''H' is lean — want inakctli him so, 
]^ain causes his sinews to shrink ; 

But nothinji: he recks of the brain-wastln<»- flow 
Of Poverty's slow [)eu and ink. 

Alas ! for tlic neediness, pridL'-restraincd 
From the worldly whose sneer we dread — 

For the pride, like the ancient criminal, chained 
Tlie living unto the dead. 

Alas ! ahis ! for Gentility's lieir, 

Untutored in work-a-day thrift, 
Whose })ortion is pov<.'rty, striving' [ind care, 

And to live by making a shift. 



A PLEA FOR THE RICH MAN. 

Say yo who arc toiling at life's great forgo 

To fashion the darksome ore ; 
Who early and late are railing at fate, 

And the lot that your fathers bore — 

Why fret tliat from labor you fnid no rest, 

And murmur 'tis vain to try; 
And scoff, in your liale, at tin; rich man's state, 

As his coach rolls proudly by. 

A sumptuous dwelling the rich man hath, 

And dainty is his rej)ast ; 
But remember that luxury's prodigal hand 

Keeps the furnace of toil in blast. 



A PLEA FOR TIIK RICH MAN. 121 

His wife wears jewels and silks and lace, 

That dazzle the poor man's sight; 
And haply your dame may flaunt in the same, 

If you fashion the ore aright. 

The world upholdeth, you say, the rich, 

And dooraeth the poor to toil ; 
You talk in despite, of Humanity's right 

To a share of the rich man's spoil. 

From the Andes, those old aristocrats. 

To Blanc, with his icy crown, 
Your wishing would level the whole broad earth — 

But you only would level it doivn. 

Yet the hills will stand, and the rich will ride. 

Till the old world's final day ; 
And Christ, our head, to his followei*s said 

" The poor ye will have alway." 

Remember, laborer at the forge. 

The knowledge you sure have learned — 

How seldom the gold that his cofi*ers hold 
Have the rich man's fathers earned. 

Remember how thrift began the hoard 

That luxury's want supplies ; 
How industry turned dame Fortune's wheel. 

Or luck drew forth a prize. 

And think, as you sneer at his proud career, 

And envy his golden height. 
That you may ride by the rich man's side, 

If you fashion the ore aright. 



122 A SONG OF GENIUS. 



A SONG OF GENIUS. 

Who calls me poor ? Thongli tatters Lang beneath, 
I wear a regal mantle gemmed with stars, 

And on my brow a fadeless laurel wreath — 
A crown more glorious than a conqueror's. 

The world to me is one vast treasure mine, 

Where I may delve, and mould to shape the ore, 

Till from my hand it springs a form divine, 
For all the future ages to adore. 

Who calls me humble? I, whose will decrees ! 

While minds less bold their coming hour await, 
I make my time — chaotic matter seize — 

And with my daring God-power I create ! 

And, casting back the shadows on the night, 

I overleap the slow advancing years ; 
And on my pathway gleams a track of light. 

Whose brightness thrills the startled hemispheres. 

The nations hail me with their benison — 
Their thronging generations laud my name, 

And my proud land loud vaunts my wonders done — 
I Genius am, and my reward is fame ! 

Fame — say not it is mockery ! I have striven. 
With tireless energy, to bless mankind ; 

iVnd, oh ! in this have I not, faithful, given 
Hand to the deity within me shrined ? 



TO FRANCES S. OSGOOD. 123 

Welcome the loud acclaim ! It is the prayer 
That from a myriad grateful hearts shall rise ; 

So let the blest " Well done 1 " their voices bear, 
Plead for me at the gate of Paradise. 



TO FRANCES S. OSGOOD. 

One day, the Indiaa sages tell, 

Young Love, all armed with bow and quiver, 
Throned on a lotus-wreath6d shell, 

Came vovasjinor down the sacred river. 

The maids who saw the child afloat, 

And fondly sought but failed to bind him ; 

Lit up at night their flowery boat, 
And sent it o'er the wave to find him. 

But ah ! the minion only smiled 

At those dark daughters of the Ganges ; 

For Love is e'er a wayward child. 

Whom coaxing but the more estranges. 

The boy swept onward down the stream. 

Away by many a pass terrific, 
Until with sunset's golden gleam 

He launched upon the broad Pacific. 

Near many an isle, and round Cape Horn 
He sped, still flinging wide his arrows ; 

Till faint and worn, one sunny morn 

The god came floating up t\i<i " Narrows." 



124 ON A POKTKAIT OF MRS. OSGOOD. 

All ! WO the morn ! ah ! wo the day ! 

When by the shore our maidens found him ; 
For thou "vvith tuneful cords, they say, 

Within the pearly shell hast bound him ! 

And now, with wondrous skill and art, 
Thou sweepest the entrancing lyre ; 

While Love shoots true at every heart, 
From underneath the thralling wire. 



ON A PORTRAIT OF MRS. OSGOOD.* 

She dwells amid the world's dark vvays. 

Pure as in childhood's hours ; 
And all her thoughts are poetry, 

And all her words are flowers. 

Gaze on that fair and noble brow. 

Those deep, impassioned eyes, 
Upturned as 't were to lure blest thoughts, 

Like seraphs from the skies. 

Looks she not like a Pythoness 

With the god's presence fired — 

As if fi'om those full lips would burst 
The oracle inspired ? 

* In the collection at the National Academy, called in the Cata- 
logue "The Flower Love-Letter." 



TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. OSGOOD. 125 

The applauding world with loud acclaim 

Has given to her renown — 
Has given her harp's wild song to fame, 

Her brow the poet's crown. 

Yet with a fond, confiding heart, 

And tender as the dove. 
Thus ever round her guileless life 

She weaves the wreath of love. 

Oh, none may know her but to love. 

None name her but to praise, 
Whose brow "A w^'eath of wild flowers" wears 

Twined with its crowning bays. 



TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. OSGOOD. 

She sleeps in peace till Christ at last shall raise her. 
The beautiful, whom countless hearts held dear — 

Speak low ! we come to bury, not to praise her 
Who was so cherished while she lingered here. 

The flowers around are of her sweetness telling. 
The soft wind whispers of her childlike ways — 

Heart ! have thy will, and let thy memories, swelling. 
Pour forth in loving words her right of praise. 

A fount of beauty all her hfe was filling, 

And ever the sweet thoughts her lips betrayed 

Fell on the soul like Persia's dew, distilling 
So pure, it leaves no rust upon the blade. 



126 



TO FERDINAND FREILTGRATil. 



And evermore her song exultant ringing, 

Rose on strong pinions from her heart of care ; 

Still upward, upward, like the sky-lark singing, 
Till her voice joined with seraphs in the air. 

Her sister angels missed her long from heaven, 
They missed her harp harmonious from the sky, 

And thus, upon a holy Sabbath even. 

They bore her to their glorious home on high. 

And now, tearful sistei-s of the lyre, 

O bard and sage, we raise the stone of fame 

To her who wrought the lay with minstrel fire, 
And left to earth her sono- and blameless name. 



TO FERDINAND FREILIGRATH. 

" Alone the poet lives — alone he dies, i 

Cain-like he bears the desolating brand 
Upon his brow of sorrow. True, his hand 
Is free from blood-guilt, but in human eyes 
Ilis is a darker crime than that of Cain- 
Rebellion against social wrong and law ! " 

Gr abbe's Death. 

Poet ! who Avarring nobly with the wrong. 

Who, greatly gifted, 
Bold in the front, true Bard ! the sword of sono- 

Hast fearless lifted — 

Ah ! never thus wilt thou go forth, I said, 

Alone and branded ; 
But like the fiery messenger that led 

Of old the banded. 



TO FERDINAND FREILIGRATH. 127 

For souls like thine are Titans in the earth, 

In strength upheaving ; 
Until the long-pent flame resistless forth 

Its way is cleaving. 

Until the loud volcano from her sleep 

Awakes the nation, 
And from her burning heart swells up the deep 

Reverberation. 

Thus woke thy land. The light that Luther shed 

Its ray was giving, 
When by thy prophet-lips the martyr Dead 

Invoked the Livino-. 

o 

Till from the blood-drops sown throughout the land, 

Of her true-hearted ; 
As from the fabled dragon's teeth, a band 

Avenging started. 

They rose in faith, and to the glorious toil 

Bent their strong shoulders ; 
To rear Man's Rights like giants in the soil, 

Firm as Earth's boulders. 

Oh, Land ! where Liberty, a Pariah, bowed 

In dust before thee ; 
High hopes, like angel-ministers, a crowd 

Unseen are o'er thee. 

For like the sign that led by night and day, 

The God-commanded ; 
Before the Pharaoh Might thou ledst the way 

Of nations banded. 



128 TO MARY OF KENTUCKY. 

And thou, her Bard, all hallowed with the fame 

Of thy devotion ; 
That like to yonder rainbow's arch of flame, 

Spanneth the ocean — 

Oh ! doomed to exile ! — if it be to death 

Thy faith has won thee ; 
It is to martyrdom thou goest forth, 

The crown upon thee ! 



TO MARY OF KENTUCKY. 

*' There's rosemary ; that's for remembrance." — Shakspeare. 

On the fair shores of Hellas there grows a wild flower. 

To memory sacred — an emblem of thee ; 
It lives on through all changes, in sunshine and shower, 

And botanists call it the Rose of the Sea.* 

Where the dwarf-shrub finds root, where the gray lichen 
springetb. 
Where the wild goat looks down from his height o'er 
the tide ; 
Through the chill frost, still fadeless, it fearlessly clingeth. 
In fragrance and bloom to the rock's rugged side. 

And thus when thy youth's lovely summer shall perish. 
When life's flowers lie withered and strown by the blast ; 

Thy memory its fond recollections will cherish. 
Will cling in its verdure and bloom to the past. 

♦ Rosmarinus. 



TO MRS. H. P. S. 129 

Oh ! well have they named thee " Wild-flower of the 
Prairie," 

So gracefully blooming, dear one as thou art ; 
But I have baptized thee, my wild-herb, Rose-Mary, 

Sweet flower of remembrance set deep in my heart. 



TO MRS. H. P. S. 

God speed the bark that bears thee forth 
To cross the treacherous sea — 

Oh, lady ! Avould I were a bird. 
That I miofht follow thee ! 

It is not that your Eastern land 

Has fairer tinted flowers, 
And brighter streams, and balmier gales, 

Than this cold clime of ours — 

For here the perfumed violets sj)ring 

In all our pastures wide ; 
And here amid their long green leaves 

The valley hlies hide — 

'Tis not that through your orient heaven, 

Up to its native skies. 
Poised on its golden pinions, floats 

The bird of paradise — 

For a sweeter note the robin has. 

That builds amid the leaves ; 
And we better love the social bird 

That nestles in the eaves — 



130 A BANQUET SONG. 

And dearer tlian your groves of palm 
By Indian breezes fanned, 

We prize the spreading forest trees 
Of our own native land — 

But thou wilt clasp again his hand, 
Whose face I yearn to see — 

Oh ! would I had an eagle's wings, 
That I might follow thee ! 

His glad-toned voice will welcome thee, 
Like some long-watched-for star ; 

Or like a pleasant strain that brings 
Sweet memories from afar. 

I freight thee forth with tender words — 
Ah ! words can ne'er impart 

The deep, unfailing love that wells 
Within a sister's heart. 

I watch the dim and lessening sail 
That bears thee o'er the sea — 

Oh, lady ! would I were a bird, 
That I might follow thee ! 



A BANQUET SOJSTG. 

A LAY of love ! ask yonder sea 

For wealth its waves have closed upon- 

A song from stern Thermopylae— • 
A battle-shout from ^larathon ! 



A BANQUET SONG. 131 

Look on my brow ! reveals it nau'glit ? 

It hidetli deep rememberings, 
Enduring as the records wrought 
Within the tombs of Egypt's kings ! 

Take thou the harp— I may not sing- 
Awake the Teian lay divine, 
Till fii-e from every glowing string 
Shall mingle with the flashing Avine. 

The Theban lyre but to the sun 

Gave forth at morn its answering tone ; 
So mine but echoed when the one. 

One sunht glance was o'er it thrown. 
The Memnon sounds no more — my lyre, 

A veil upon thy strings is flung — 
I may not wake the chords of fire, 

The words that bum upon iny tongue. 
Fill high the cup — I may not sing — 

My hands the crowning buds will twine- 
Pour — till the wreath I o'er it fling 
Shall mingle with the rosy wine. 

"No lay of Love ! the lava stream 

Has left its trace on heart and brain ! 
No more ! no more ! — the maddening theme 

Will wake the slumbering fires again ! 
Fling back the shroud on buried years — 

Hail ! to the ever-blooming hours ! 
We'll fill Time's glass with ruby tears, 

And twine his bald, old brow with flowers ! 
Fill high ! fill high ! I may not sing — 

Strike forth the Teian lay divine. 
Till fire from every glowing string 
Shall mingle with the flashing wine ! 



l''^2 THE LAST BATTLE. 



THE LAST BATTLE. 

Heaved from ocean's deep volcanoes, 

By some struggling Titan's tliroes, 
Stand these rocks, that, like strong giants, 

Guard the waters whence they rose ; 
With the restless, old Atlantic 

Lying watchful round them curled — 
Fetters once for Thee, and warder, 

Thee, whose glory filled the world. 

And thou diedst here, feeble — puling. 

On the couch, and by the hearth — 
Thou, Avhose will to its dominion, 

Bent the potentates of earth : 
And they show the tomb that held thee — 

And the showman's hps repeat, 
" This way lay the vanquished lion,"^ 

Here his head, and here his feet ! " 

Thou whose footstep on the desert 

Housed the Sphinx from her repose — 
Thou, from whom the Bear retreating, 

Cowered back along the snows — 
And was this for thee an ending? 

Thee ! whose bold ambition still 
Would have bowed the host of heaven 

To the working of thy will ! 

* " Xapoleon was pleased with the flattery which derived his 
name from two Greek woi'ds, signifying the Lion of the Desert." 
— "Walter Scott. 



THE maiden's destiny. 133 

Well they taught — the Gaul's old foemeu, 

They whose cradle was the shield, 
That the " straw death" was for women, 

But a warrior's rest the field. 
Yet the shot swept by unheeding, 

Where thy conquering eagles flew; 
And the sword unpitying passed thee 

Upon fatal Waterloo. 

A,nd the coming ages murmur — 

Hadst thou died in streno-th aiTaved, 
Like the Old World Giant perished 

'Mid the ruin thou hadst made — 
Thou, enrolled with the immortal, 

Then hadst deified the clod ; 
Nor had dimmed with mortal weakness 

Thus, the glory of the Ciod. 



THE MAIDEN'S DESTINY. 

Low in a cavcrii, 'mid vapors dun, 
Their shadowy thread the Parcai spun. 
The ruthless Three who on life await, 
Were twining the web of a mortal's fate : 
Pale Clotho, mingling the mystic clew. 
The parti-thread from the distaft\lrew; 
Chanting the while in cadence low, 
Words weird iv.A wikl, in measured flow — 
" Turn the wheel, sist.-r I" 



134 THE maiden's destinv. 

"The warp we twist and the woof Ave twine, 
For the new-born spirit in eartlily slirine ; 
And varied and dark must tlie shading be 
In the web of its mortal destiny. 
We dower the maiden with nanglit of grace, 
We give her no beauty of form or face ; 
But the outw^ard charms that the Fates deny, 
In the himinous depths of her soul shall lie — 
Turn the wheel, sister ! 

" The warp we twist and the woof we twine — 
Let her inherit that gift divine, 
(Look that our spinning have no defect!) 
Which bringeth the power by sages sought. 
To sway the sceptre o'er realms of thought — 
We Gfive her the dower of Intellect. 
We ffive to her hand the God-tuned Ivre, 
We touch her lip with the heavenly lire — 

Turn the wheel, sister ! 

" Be hers a spirit that palls with fame, 
A passionless brow, and a breast of flame ; 
Where the hidden fires shall thrill and glow, 
Like Hecla under her veil of snow ; 
While dearer prized than her dower of pride 
Shall be the beauty to her denied — 
That powxn- wdiich lureth with sweet, fond art. 
The love of a loved-one's answering heart — 
Turn the wheel, sister ! 

" Her gift of glory, her w^ealth divine, 
Be cast in worship on earthly shrine; 



GREEN PLACES IN THE CITY. 135 

That wild heart-worsliip, oil ! all in vain, 
Which palsies the spirit and sears the brain. 
Let her in loneliness hopelessly pine. 
Till Atropos sever the clew w^e twine. 
Our task is over — our work is done — 
Lo ! the thread of the maiden's fate is spun — 

Stop the wheel, sister !" 



GREEN PLACES IN THE CITY. 

Ye fill my heart with gladness, verdant places. 

That in the City greet me, where I pass — 
Meihinks I see of angel-steps the traces. 

Where'er upon my pathway springs the grass. 
I pause before your gates at. early morning, 

W^hen lies the sward with glittering sheen o'erspread ; 
And think the dew-drops there each blade adorning, 

Are angel's tears for mortal frailty shed. 

And ye — earth's firstlings — here in beauty springing, 

Erst in your cells by careful winter nursed — 
And to the morning heaven your incense flinging, 

As at IIis smile ye forth in gladness burst — 
How do ye cheer with hope my lonely hour. 

When on my way I tread despondingly ; 
With thought that He who careth for the flower, 

Will, in His mercy, still remember me. 

Breath of our nostrils — Tiiou ! whose love embraces — 
Whose light shall never from our souls depart — 



136 THE HEARTH OF HOME. 

Beneath thy touch has sprung a green oasis 

Amid the arid desert of my heart. 
Thy sun and rain call forth the bud of promise, 

And with fresh leaves in spring time deck tlie tree ; 
That where man's hand has shut out nature from us, 

We, by these glimpses, may remember Thee ! 



THE HEARTH OF HOME. 

The storm around my d. veiling sweeps, 
And while the boughs it tiercely reaps, 
My heart within a vigil kee})s, 

The warm and cheering hearth beside ; 
And as I mark the kindling glow 
Brightly o'er all its radiance throw, 
Back to the years my memories flow. 

When Rome sat on her hills in pi'ide, 
When every stream, and grove, and tree. 
And fountain had its deity. 

The hearth w^as then, with low and great, 

Unto the Lares consecrate : 

The youth arrived to man's estate 

There offered up his golden heart ; 
Thither, when overwhelmed Avith dread, 
The stranger e'er for refuge fled, 
Was kindly cheered, and warmed, and fed, 

Till he might fearless thence depart : 
And there the slave, a slave no more, 
Hung reverent up the chain he wore. 



THE HEARTH OF HOME. 137 

Full many a change the hearth has known — 
The Druid lii-e, the curfew's tone, 
The log that bright at yule-tide shone, 

The merry sports of Hallow-e'en ; 
Yet still where'er a home is found. 
Gather the warm affections round, 
And there the notes of mirth resound, 

The voice of wisdom heard between : 
And welcomed there with words of grace. 
The stranger finds a resting place. 

Oh ! wheresoe'er our feet may roam. 
Still sacred is the hearth of home; 
Whether beneath the princely dome, 

Or peasant's lowly roof it be, 
For home the wanderer ever yearns ; 
Backward to where its hearth-fire burns. 
Like to the wife of old, he turns 

Fondly the eyes of memory. 
Back where his heart he offered first — 
Back where his fan-, young hopes he nursed. 

My humble hearth though all disdain, 
Here may I cast aside the chain, 
The cold world-fetters that restrain — 

Here to ray Lares offer up 
The warm prayer of a grateful heart ; 
Thou who my household guardian art, 
Who dost to me thy aid impart, 

And with thy mercy fillest ray cup ; 
Strengthen the hope within my soul, 

Till I in ftiith shall reach the goal. 
7* 



13S PARTING FROM A HOUSEHOLD. 



PARTHSTG FROM A HOUSEHOLD. 

We are parting, as with shadows, 

From the friends of happy hours ; 
From the eyes whose kindly glances 

Were as sinibcaras nnto flowei*s — 
From the sound of gentle voices, 

Whose tones have cast a spell 
Of gladness over every word, 

Save that dread word — " farewell ! " 

Do ^Ye pass, to be forgotten, 

From the fireside and the board ; 
With our parting footsteps, lightly forth 

Like a jest — an idle word ? 
The sea lamenteth not the foam 

Fluno- from its dashino- crest : 
Nor the eagle the loosed feather 

That is falling from his breast ! 

friends ! we would be treasured still ! 

Thouo-h Time's cold hand should cast 
His misty veil, in after years, 

Over the idol Past ; 
Yet send to us some offering though i^ 

O'er memory's ocean wide ; 
Pure as the Hindoo's votive lamp 

On Ganga's sacred tide. 



GUAUDIAN ANGELS. 



139 



GUARDIAN ANGELS. 

Ere the locks o'er thy brow were whitened, 

Ere my life Avas baptized in tears ; 
We met in the golden sunlight, 

On a morn of the bygone years : 
On me, on the old worn pathway, 

Fell the beam of thy glance benign ; 
Vnd the lidit of the morn seemed brighter 

As thy spirit looked out on mine : 
And onward I went rejoicing, 

Rejoicing the live-long day ; 
For I felt thy kind thoughts w^ent with me. 

Like angels, upon my way. 



I know not if there be any 

Whom of all the world thou lovest best — 
I know not if there be any 

Whose love for thee makes thee blest — 
But I know, by thy gentle bearing, 

And the light that is in thine eyes. 
That a fount of unfjiiling tenderness 

In the depths of thy spirit lies ; 
x\nd my heart, when we meet at morning, 

Rejoices the live-long day ; 
For I know thy kind thoughts go with me. 

Like angels, upon my way. 



140 THE GKAV'K OF L. E. L. 

I sliould miss tliee from that old pathway, 

If thy journeyings first were o'er — 
I should pine for thy kindly glances, 

Did they bi'ighten )iiy day no more — 
Yet when to the dread hereafter 

I pass with the shadowy band, 
I know we sliall meet at mornino- 

Again, in the unknown land, 
There again with its eyes celestial. 

Thy spirit will look on mine; 
And thy kind thoughts, that live with the angels, 

AVill greet me in life divine. 



THE GRAVE OF L. E. L:^' 

I COME to thee a stranger, 

England ! — Fatherland ! 
There's a cypress garland o'er the lyre 

1 am holding in my hand ; 
And I will strike to thee to-night, 

The mighty chords of soul. 
Till the swelling tide of long pent thought 
Triumphantly shall roll ! 

^ She is buried in that part of tlie court- yard facing the sea, 
close by 1 he ramparts: no stone marks her grave ; it is not even 
raised above the level of the yard ; and were it not for the few 
recently pUiced bricks, it would be difficult to find the spot. — 
Journal of Capt. Ilerapath. 



'IHE GRAVE OF L. E, L. 141 

There is joy in all your palaces, 

There is feasting in your halls, 
Where the noble and the beautiful 

Are gathered 'mid the walls ; 
And ever on the midnio-ht air 

Glad music pours along, 
Where the hundred harps of England 

Lift high the voice of song. 

Oh I listen ! harp of England ! 

There's a dower that to thee clings, 

x\nd a fadeless wreath of laurel 
Entwining all thy strings ; 

And woman's hand has smote thy chords, 
With a stroke all bold and free. 

Till the mighty flood of English song- 
Has gone o'er every sea ! 

Long in your noble minsters. 

With your dust of heroes kept ; 
'ISTeath sculptured urn and cenotaph 

Your nameless dead have slept ; 
While she who culled fresh buds of song. 

Your ancient crown to grace. 
Rests coldly shrined in stranger earth. 

No stone to mark the place ! 

Far o'er the dark blue waters, 

With their measured, onward sweep ; 

Ilymned by the dirge-like voices 
Of the melancholy deep ; 



142 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 

Trod 'neatli the passing footstep 
Of the felon and the slave, 

Tliere by the sea-beat rampart lies 
Her lone, unhallowed grave ! 

Oh ! wreathe ye fadeless chaplets 

For the earth that shrouds her breast, 
And raise the enduring; marble 

Above her place of rest ; 
And lift for aye the harj) of praise 

High o'er her laurelled head. 
Till e'en the Ethiop honor thee, 

In thine illustrious dead ! 



THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 

'Tis said of old a fountain lay 
Hid in the forest, far away — 

A magic fount it was in sooth — 
Where he who stooped above the brink, 
And laved his brow, and bent to drink, 

Though he were bowed with years before, 
The semblance of unchanging youth, 

Thenceforth should wear for evermore. 

But he alone has reached the goal. 
Who, turning from the world aside, 

'Mid the green places of the soul 
Has sought the pure, life-giving tide, 

That wells with faith, and love, and truth — 

The fountain of perpetual youth. 



THE conqueror's BANIs'Ea. l'^3 



THE CONQUEROR'S BANNER. 



" In hoc sisrno vinces. 



No more by golden idols — 

The Pagan monarch said — 
Let our embattled legions 

To victory be led. 
Lo ! lieaven in fire revealeth 

To us, the power divine, 
That shall marshal forth to conquest 

The host of Constantine ! 

The haughty -hearted Persian 

Before its might will quail. 
And the soaring Roman eagle 

His lofty pinions vail — 
xYnd the Goth beneath his iron helm 

Will hush his battle-cry. 
When bold above our flashing spears 

We rear the Cross on high ! 

Then far upon your bannei-s 

The sign be proudly borne, 
And graven on your bucklers 

The glorious symbol worn — 
Thus set upon our battle-front 

The talisman divine, 
That shall scatter like the whirlwind 

The foes of Constantine ! 



144 



LAMENT OF JOSKPHINE. 



My heart ! with cares environed — 

Tliat panting in the strife, 
Hast set thine earthly idols 

In the battle front of life — 
AVhen thou, amid the conflict, 

Shalt prove them false and frail ; 
Turn heavenward, like the Pagan, 

For the Power that will prevail. 



LAMENT OF JOSEPHINE. 



" They parted as all lovers part — 
She with her wronged and breaking heart ; 

But he, rejoicing he is free, 
Bounds like the captive from his chain. 

And wilfully believing she 
Hath found her liberty again."— i. E. L. 



The Empress ! — what's to me the empty name! 

This regal state — this glittering pageant life ? 
A tinselled cheat ! — Am I not crowned with shame? 

Shorn of my glorious name, NAroLEo>;'s Wife ! 
Set with a bauble here to play my part, 
And shroud with veil of pomp my breaking heart. 



'Tis mockery ! — thought is with the days ere thou. 
Seeking the world's love, unto mine grew cold — 

Ere yet the diadem entwined my brow 

Tightening around my brain its serpent fold — 

When each quick life pulse throbbed, unschooled of art, 

When my wide empire was Napoleon's Iieai't ! 



A LAMENT FOR THE OLD YEAR. 145 

My spirit quails before this loneliness — 

Why did no warning thought within me rise, 

Telling- thy hand would stay its fond caress 
To wreathe the victim for the sacrifice ! 

That joy, the dove so to my bosom prest — 

Would change to this keen vulture at my breast ! 

Parted for evei- ! — who has dared iiiake twain 

Those He has joined ? — the nation's mighty voice! 

And thou hast bounded forward from thy chain, 
Like the freed captive, — therefore, heart ! rejoice 

Above tlie ashes of thy hopes, that he 

Has o'er their ruin leapt to liberty ! 



A LAMENT FOR THE OLD YEAR. 

There was sound of mirth by the lowly hearth, 

And in lordly mansion high ; 
For the gray Old Year, in his mantle sere, 

Had folded him down to die. 
And the midnio-ht clano; of his death knell ransc 

O'er a hundred blazing pyres. 
As they gathered him there, by the firelight's glare, 

To the tomb of his hoary sires. 

Yet my heart was sad 'mid the voices glad. 
For I thouojht on the Old Year's P'l'aves — 

On the warm tears wept for the brave who slept 
Li the ocean's unknown caves. 



146 TO A MUSICIAN. 

I am old ! — I am old ! — There were locks of gold, 
There Avere cheeks that bloomed like May ; 

But the bounding form, and the young heart warm, 
Have passed from my side away. 

There were eyes of light on my pathway bright. 

There were arms that round me clung ; 
They sleep in the fold of the death shroud cold, 

The tenanted tombs among. 
Where the ivy creeps — where the night-wind sweeps — 

Where battens the w^orm, Decay — 
They are there ! they are there ! through the midnight air 

They are beckoning me away. 

Oh ! the New Year has come from his far off home, 

O'er the frost-bound Arctic wave ; 
x\nd the ice-shod feet of his coursers fleet. 

Have swept o'er the Old Year's grave. 
He is here ! he is here ! the hale New Year ! 

They have kindled a hundred fires; 
But my heart lies cold, with the Monarch old, 

In the tomb of his hoary sires. 



TO A MUSICIAN. 

Oh ! wondrous, God-taught master 
Of the high and holy art ! 

What spell lies in thy cunning hand 
To enthral and sway the heart ? 



TO A MUSICIAN. 147 

Thou sweepest notes triumphal 

From the peaHng chords on high, 
And the spirit wildly boundeth 

To the soul-awakening cry — 
We feel each nerve with rapture thrill, 

Each pulse, responsive start ; 
And the life-tide quicken, till the flood 

Swells proudly through the heart. 

ISTow, o'er the prisoned senses 

Come stealing, soft and low, 
Sweet, half-forgotten melodies 

We cherished long ago — 
And fir, faint, spirit voices 

Seem whispering to us here, 
Of a dim remembered angel state 

In some holier, happier sphere — 
Haunting us with vague memories, 

From the vast — the undefined, 
As if some echo from our past 

Within thy thought were shrined. 

'Tis the mighty spell of music — 

Such as woke in yonder sky 
When the morning stars together sang 

In heaven-born harmony ! 
Be near me in that fearful hour 

Of dread and mystery. 
When the weary soul would spread its wing 

For immortality — 
So may my passing spirit. 

Parting homeward for the skies ; 
Be wafted on thy seraph strains 

To the shores of Paradise. 



148 THE Highlander's wager. 



THE HIGHLANDER'S WAGER. 

a 33allatr. 

A KNIGHT upon his bare-boned steed, 

A steel-clad knight was he — 
And a Scot in plaid and eagle plume, 

Came riding o'er the lea ; 
And each drew rein at the low-browed door 

Of a Highland hostehie. 

" Ale ! " — called the Scot, as they crossed the stone 

Of the hostel low and dim ; 
And he blew the foam, as it whitened up 

From the brown draught's creamy brim, 
x\nd shook the drop as he drained the cup, 

From the goblet's horny rim. 

They sat upon the oid worn seat, 

By the blazing logs of pine ; 
" Ho ! " laughed the knight, " your Scottish ' hroo ' 

May not slaken thirst like mine !" 
And he struck the seat with his mailed hand, 

And shouted " Wine ! — ho I — wine ! " 

Quoth he, " Your chiefs to gentle blood. 

Right gentle ways might v,in — 
I marvel how they sit at meat 

AVith their rude and bare-legged kin, 
While each candle drips on the darkened floor, 

From its hanging sconce of +''" 



THE HIGJILAKDERS WAGER. 149 

"I swear by tlie Holy Rood ! sir Scot," 

(Oh, a bragg'ai't kniglit was he) — 
'"' I feasted there with a Lowland lord — 

A lord of high degree — 
Where wine was served in silver cups, 

By a page on bended knee ! 

" From silver flagons, planted nigh, 

With odorous Rhine wines stored, 
A dozen liveried serving men 

The sparkling beverage poured ; 
And a score of silver candlesticks 

Graced the noble's princely board ! 

" I hold you, Scot, my knightly sword, 

And a hundred merks beside. 
There's nor silver flagon, nor candlestick, 

In your whole hill-country wide — 
And your ale, I trow, has the muddy flow 

Of your boasted river Clyde ! " 

When shrank a Scot from Southron boast, 

From skirmish bold, or raid ? 
His hand was on his trusty skene. 

Within his belted plaid, 
" And my claymore to thy knightly sword, 

For a hundred merks" — he said. 

" The Gael, sir knight, ne'er stays for meat 

When the targe is at his back ; 
Nor hunts the deer in the upland glade 

When the foe is on his track ; 
Nor leaves the field for the reeking haunch, 

Like the hungry Sassenach. 



150 THE Highlander's wager. 

" But AvLeii the foe has left the height, 

Then away o'er heath and fen, 
We chase the deer from his woody lair 

In the wild and tangled glen — 
And a fat haunch smokes on the chieftain's board, 

From the lordly buck of ten.'''' 

" True, that nor page nor silver cup, 

Our homely feasts adorn — 
Our wassail bowls are the oaken quaigh, 

And the ruder dr in kino- horn — 
And our wine we press from the bearded ears 

Of the ripened barley-corn. 

" Yet I hold a cup of Scottish ale 

Worth a tun of your Saxon wine ! 
Who would barter a horn of fairentosh 

For the vineyards of the Rhine ? 
'I could write the lie,' thought the wary Scot, 

' On that boastful tongue of thine ! ' 

" But a hundred merks to thine, sir knight, 

On the sconces here — I hold 
There are better far in my father's house, 

And of Aveight and worth untold — 
Full fifty, ranged at the nightly board. 

All of tried and proven gold ! 

" The sun is low — the hills afer — 

Our way lies o'er the lea — 
Thou shalt judge aright ere morning dawn. 

Have I wao'ered well with thee." 

* Antlers of ten tines. 



THE Highlander's wager. 151 

And the twain were wendinjy their onward way 
O'er tlia heather, silentl}^ 

And they are standing in the hall, 

Where the well-j^iled board is sj^read 
With the moorfowl, and the smoking haunch, 

And the good brawn at the head — 
And the warm light falls on the old oak floor, * 

From the blazing peat-fire shed. 

And moveless all, as marble men, 

With bare and down-turned blade ; 
Full fifty clansmen guard the hall. 

In Highland garb arrayed — 
Each uplifting a flaming torch, 

Of the well dried bog-pine made. 

The knight starts back — but the stalwai't Scot 

Had not parted from his side ; 
And again he hears the deep-toned voice 

Of his plumed and tartaned guide — 
"Behold! sir knight, the candlesticks 

Of my father's house of pride ! 
They were dross, the sconces of yon lord, 

With such sterling metal tried ! " 



152 PERSEVERE. 



PERSEVERE. 

FKOM THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO. 

" Le g^nie c'est 1' aigle ! oiseau de la ternpete," etc. 

True genius, like the eagle, seeks 

The height of the loftiest mountain peaks — 

Oh, never his talons defileth he ! 
His fierce cry hails the awakening day — 
His eye to the sun darts back its ray, 

Like the lightning in its intensity ! 

And his is no nest of moss, I ween — 
But high on the crag that juts between 

The heavens aloft and the dread abyss. 
His eyrie, formed 'mid the tempest's shock, 
Dug by a thunderbolt from the rock. 

Hangs beetling over the precij^ice! 

Oh, not with the worm and the gilded bee. 
His hungry and clamoring brood feeds he — 

Not the dragon-fly with its gilded wings, 
But the carrion kite and the lizard foul, 
The hideous snake and the hooting owl, 

He to the bristhno^ eao-lets flino's ! 

AVhere the threatening cloud on the mountain's crest 
Hangs like an avalanche o'er his nest. 

He rears his young 'mid the thunder burst ; 
All proudly braving its vengeful ire 
He turns to the sun their eyes of fire — 

Thus be thy powers, oh Genius ! nursed. 



TO A PAIR OF OLD EAR-RINGS. 153 



TO A PAIR OF OLD EAR-RINGS. 

Ye antique shapes of rare device, 
Ye pendent, jewelled gauds of price, 

And fashioned — to what end abstruse ? 
Remnant of old, barbaric sway, 
Continued to our later day. 

And with us passing out of use — 

I marvel, now ye are displaced. 
That aught so heathenish e'er graced 

The fair, round ears of Christendom : — 
Your wealth of gems and filagree. 
Were more befitting bravery 

For mummy of the catacomb ! 

Yet, as upon your shapes I gaze, 
The storied scenes of elder days 

Arise with force that reason mocks — 
Outspread beneath Arabia's sMes, 
A pastoral land before me lies. 

With browsing herds and tender flocks. 

At Nahor's well a stranger waits — 
A maiden train come forth the gates. 

And fair Rebekah leads the band — 
And now she stands the fount beside, 
Her beauteous cheek with blushes dyed, 

The jewelled offerings in her hand. 



154 TO A PAIR OF OLD EAR-RINGS. 

The vision fades, and lo ! again, 
On Sinai's parched and desert plain 

Seditions Israel murmuring stands 
And j^riestly Aaron's mandate hears — 
" Break off your ear-rings from your ears. 

And bring them hither in your hands ! " 

To form he moulds the molten ore, 
Like that Egyptian Apis wore ; 

With cunning hand he shapes it well — 
Then lifts the golden image high, 
And swell the host the exultant cry, 

" These are thy gods, oh Israel ! " 

From gorgeous ceiling overhead, 
Light on a banquet board is shed. 

And moves the feast to flute-notes low — 
Blushing within its crowned cup 
The ruby-red wine sparkles up. 

And joyously the moments flow. 

Holds Cleopatra feast to-night — 

And beauty's eyes flash mirth and light. 

As she who wears the diadem 
With jewelled hand puts back the curl, 
And from her ear unclasps the pearl, 

And in her goblet casts the gem. 

Ye pendent shapes of precious ore ! 
Though ye adorn mine ears no more. 

Yet, relics of antiquity — 
From Vandal hands I'll guard you well. 
For ye are potent as a spell, 

To conjure back the past to me. 



SONG OF THE OWL. 155 



SONG OF THE OWL. 

Aloft in my ancient, sky-roofed linll, 

In my old gray turret high, 
Where the ivy waves o'er the criimbHng wall 

A kino- ! a kino: reio-n I ! 
Tu-whoo ! 
I wake the woods with my startling call 

To the frighted passer-by. 

The gadding vines in the chinks that grow, 

Come clambering up to me ; 
And the newt, the bat, and the toad, I trow, 

A merry band are we. 
Tu-whoo ! 
Oh ! the coffined monks in their cells below, 

Have no goodlier company. 

When the sweet dew sleeps in the midnight cool. 

To some tree top I win ; 
While the toad leaps up on her throne-like stool, 
And our revels loud begin — 
Tu-whoo ! 
, And the bull-frog croaks by yon stagnant pool. 
Ere he sportive plunges in. 

And the blind bat wheels through the cloister shades, 
^ Where none unscared may pass; 



156 THE BIRD OF PARADISE. 

And the newt glides forth through the long arcades, 
Where the glow-worm lights the grass — 
Tu-whoo ! 

And Will-o'-the-wisp o'er the broad, green glades. 
Flits on to the far morass. 

And thus I w^een all the livelong night, 

A gladsome life lead we ; 
While the stars look down from their jewelled height, 

On our sports approvingly. 
Tu-whoo ! 
They may bask who will in the mid-day light, 

But the midnio-ht o-loom for me ! 



THE BIRD OF PARADISE. 

O'er a fair blooming isle in the far Indian seas, 
Soars aloft a gay bird, in the face of the breeze : 
Soars aloft, while the air with his glad voice outrings, 
As the gale rushing by smooths his gossamer wings. 

Afar through yon ether thy bright pathway Hes, 
High upward, and onward, brave Bird of the Skies ! 
He who guideth the tempest, aid to thee doth impart, 
Giveth force to thy pinion, and strength to thy heart. 

Where the strong-plumed eagle springs up and away. 
On the far clouds of morning thy mates are at play : — 
Then mount thee in gladness ! swell thy clear notes on 

high — 
Ah ! why hast thou wandered thus down from the sky ? 



A BIVOUAC IN THE DESERT. loV 

Thy gay wing is drooping, its plume wears a stain, 

Thou hast stooped thee to earth — thou mayest ne'er rise 

ao-ain ! 
How hke is the spirit that soars to be free, 
In its flio'lit — in its fall — oh thou bird ! unto thee ! 



A BIVOUAC IN THE DESERT * 

The ploughshare of the conqueror passed 

Across the burning, desert plain ; 
While on the sower followed fast, 

And scattered in the bright, red grain. 

And tracking on that welded blade, 

Forged from their countless battle-brands ; 

Far o'er the broad, deep furrow made, 
On swept his trained Praetorian bands. 

The vulture is the desert's king ! 

And what of conquerors recketh he ? 
Who bounds his empire by his wing, 

Reigneth, I ween, right fearlessly ! 

* " After the baftle of tlie Pyramids, the whole way through tlie 
desert was tracked with the bones and bodies of men and animals, 
wlio had perished in these dreadful Avastes. In order to warm them- 
selves at night, they gathered together the dry bones and bodies 
of the dead, which the vultures had spared, and it was by afire com- 
posed of this fuel that Xapolcon laij doivn to sleep ni the desert." — 
Miot's Memoirs. 



158 A BIVOUAC IN THE DESERT. 

'Twas niglit — the conqueror's harvest night — 
No star in heaven its glories hid ; 

And poured the moon her radiant hght 
On desert, tent, and f)yramid. 

The reaper's blade its toil forsook — 
And in the glittering river Nile 

The plumed and turbaned Mameluke 
Slept with the scale-armed crocodile. 

Oh, Isis ! thou adored of old 

With mystic rite, and symbol rare ; 

Rude hands have rent thy veil's dark fold, 
And laid thy hidden altars bare. 

The crescent gleams from Moslem tower. 
High o'er the walls of Ptolemy ; 

And naught but thine own lotos flower, 
Oh, Nilus ! bends to worship thee. 

The jackal and the wolf are out, 
A phantom army holds the plain ; 

Why pales the conqueror ? Is't with fear 
His blood runs chill through every vein ? 

Fear ! was't a word for him who played 
The sword 'gainst crown and sceptre old ? 

Write FEAR where drove his furrowing blade 
Who trembled but beneath the cold ! 

Ho ! ye that reaped the ripened field — 
What left ye to the gleaner's hand ? 

Her stubble let the desert yield, 

To cheer this wide, unvarying sand ! 



A MEMORY IN THE DESERT. 159 

For leagues away the barren plaiu 

Nor tree, nor slirub, nor verdure owns — 

Where tliey had sown the blood-red grain, 

They gleaned but blanched and mouldering bones. 

And where of old the cloud and fire 

Led on the wandering IsraeHte, 
They heaped the pile— till far the pyre 

Reared its red column on the night. 

And fast the fanning night-wind came. 

And high the scroll accusing swept ; 
While 'neath that uplift tongue of flame, 

That burned to heaven, the conqueror slept ! 



A MEMORY IN THE DESERT. 

A TRAVELLER ou the Syrian sands, 
For many a weary, lengthening mile, 

Panting beneath the fiery sun. 
Winds onward to the river Nile. 

To that far land where broods the Sphinx 
O'er years unborn and centuries hoar ; 

Where the time-conquering Pyramids 
Uprear their forms for evermore — 

Amid the tombs her Pharaohs raised, 
Where sleep their ashes all forgot ; 

To seek the records time has kept, 
The lore the Copht remembers not. 



160 A MEMORY IN THE DESERT. 

The camel lifts his patient eyes 
Up gently toward the blazing sun ; 

A toilsome march before him lies 
Ere yet his pilgrimage be done. 

It is the holy Sabbath-day, 

And on the traveller's listless ear 

His own remembered village-bells 
Peal o'er the desert, loud and clear. 

His own sweet native villaofe bells. 

What spell has waked them here to-day ? 

Dear God ! his mother prays to thee 
In that old chapel far away ! 

And he is back, beside her there. 
Low bending down, in memory, 

While o'er his spirit comes the prayer 
He learned in childhood at her knee. 

When journeying o'er life's lengthening track, 
Toward some far good, unfound before ; 

Some wakened memory calls us back 
To joys that we may know no more — 

Oh, wisdom old, and worldly lore ! 

Ye shrines of man's idolatry ; 
What were ye to that bygone time 

Of prayer beside a mother's knee ! 



THE CITY BY THE SEA. 161 



THE CITY BY THE SEA. 

Crowned vvitli the hoar of centuiies, 

There, by the eternal sea, 
High on her misty cape she sits, 

Like an eagle ! fearless — free ! 

And thus in olden time she sat, 

On that morn of long ago ; 
'Mid the roar of Freedom's armament, 

And the war-bolts of her foe. 

Old Time has reared her pillared walls, 

Her domes and turrets high ; 
With her hundred tall and tapering spires, 

All flashing to the sky. 

Shall I not sing of thee, beloved ! 

My beautiful ! my pride ! 
Thou that towerest in thy queenly grace, 

By the tributary tide ? 

There, swan-like crestest thou the waves 
That enamored, round thee swell ; 

Fairer than Aphrodite, couched 
On her foam-wreathed ocean shell ! 

Oh ! ever, 'mid this restless hum 

Resounding from the street, 
Of the thronging, hurrying multitude, 

And the tread of stranger feet — 

8* 



16"2 TELL ME ALL. 

My heart turns back to thee — mine own ! 

My beautiful ! my pride ! 
With thought of thy free ocean wind, 

And the clasping, fond old tide — 

With all thy kindred household smokes, 

Up wreathing far away ; 
And the merry bells that pealed as now 

On my grandsire's wedding day — 

To those green graves and truthful hearts, 

O, city by the sea ! 
My heritage, and priceless dower, 

My beautiful ! in thee. 



TELL HE ALL. 

'• Story ! — God bless you ! I have none lo tell ! " 

" Come, mother ! sit beneath the vine. 

Here by our open door. 
And tell me who my fathers were 

In the glorious days of yore. 

I've read to-day such glowing tales — 

Wondering o'er every line — 
Of the knio'hts who fousrht for the holy cross, 

In the wars of Palestine — 

Of their prancing steeds, and flashing spears, 

And their pennons waving out, 
And the clarions mingling on the air 

With the stirring battle shout — 



TELL ml: all. 163 

Till I seemed to hear the rush of fight, 

The Moslem's rallying- cr}^, 
The Christian charge, and the Paynim rout, 

And the shouts of victory ! 

And were my sires bold warrior knights 1 

Oh ! brave in their array ! 
Dear mother ! I am old enough — 

Tell me the tale, I pray ! " 

"I have no tales like these, ray boy, 

In thy young ear to pour — 
Here, where we dwell, thy grand si re dwelt. 

As his grandsires did before. 

With the healthful flush of manly toil. 
And the sweat-drop on their brow ; 

They won these fields from the wild and waste, 
By the mattock and the plough. 

They were the soil's true conquerors — 

A spotless name their shield ; 
And their banner was the waving grain 

Of the i-ipened harvest field. 

Seek not to deck thy fair young brow 
With mouldering wreaths of fame ; 

But onward ! girt in manhood's might, 
And win thyself a name ! 

Guard well thy faith — keep true thy heart — 

Hold thou thine honor fast ; 
Thus be the lustre of thy worth 

Back on thy fathers cast. 



164 A SONG OF IlLKOri.. 



A SO^^G OF EUROPE.* 

Ol'k sires iu the old time 

Stayed arrow and suord. 
And the earth tilled unlearing. 

In truce with the Lord. 

The war-ery no longer 

Swelled loud o'er tlie plain, 
But the laugli of the husbandman 

Rang through tlie grain. 

And the vintager's wakened 

The song of the wine, 
Where the ripe grape they gathered. 

Or pressed ont the wine. 

Then tlie bride wore her garland, 

In gladness and glee ; 
Then the sad soul was shriven, 

Ere death set her free. 

But when the full harvest 

Was reaped from the land. 
The bow-strino- was tij^-htened — 

Unsheathed was the brand. 

* "The clei-gy did much towai^ds accustoming mankind to 
prefer the authority of law to the power of the sworvl At their 
instigation private wai-s ceased for certain periods, and on pirti- 
cuhir days, and the observance of the "Ti-uce of God" was guarded 
by the terrors of excommunication and anathema." — IMuxs' Htsi. 



THE DISH OF PORCELAIN. 165 

Thus take we the ploughshare, 

While the sword lieth still, 
From her blood-fattened waste lands 

Earth's garners to fill. 

And think, though our rulers 

Feast full on our toil, 
That we too shall gather 

New strength from the soil. 

For e'en while they rcv^el, 

Exulting in peace ; 
Our purpose will ripen, 

Our mio-ht will increase. 

Then look to our tillage. 

Sow widely the corn, 
And hail to the harvest 

That waits us at morn ! 

For the hand of the reaper 

Will sway in the grain. 
Till our tyrants are stubble 

And chaff on the plain ! 



THE DISH OF PORCELAIN. 

While I sing in wild vagaiy. 
This quaint plate of porcelain, 

Never fear nor count, my Mary, 
That thy gift has crazed my brain. 



166 THE DISH OF TORCELAIN. 

Antique dish ! that, at the banquet, 
Ere our land her meed had won, 

Graced the board where bold John Hancock 
Feasted glorious Washington. 

Thou hast served, oh ! rare old platter ! 

Men whose hearts beat firm and true ; 
On the anvil of their strono- will. 

Forging life's broad course anew. 

Thou hast heard the deep revealing 

Of their purpose all divine ; 
While they rocked young Freedom's cradle, 

Seated there above the wine. 

And the lofty fjxith that nourished 

Hope's strong purpose, while they told ; 

Nerved them like the lion's marrow 
That Achilles fed of old. 

Thou who bearest a hero's surname 
To thy dove-like name allied — 

Hero that the old Hellenes, 

Had they known had deified — 

Thou who like a throned lily, 
Wearest thy beauty all apart ; 

High the patriot's blood of iron 
Wells, my Mary, in thy heart. 

In thy dwelling where the fathers 

Of our country's history, 
Spoke the thoughts that sent our watchword 

Thunder-toned across the sea — 



THE lily's transformation. 167 

Thou art lingering o'er the records 

That with pride thy soul illume, 
As the great Greek read old Homer 

At Achilles' glorious tomb. 

So thou wilt not wonder, Mary, 

That I wake the lofty strain ; 
While such stirrinof memories lino-er 

Round this dish of jDorcelain. 



THE LILY'S TRANSFORMATION. 

To the guardian of the flowers, 
Bending down her graceful head, 

" A boon ! a boon, kind spirit !" 
The suppliant lily said. 

" Where I weary 'mid the garden 
Of the blossoms and the bowers, 

I see briofht beino-s wanderinq; 
Through the avenues of flowers. 

'• I see a maid whose beauty 
With yonder blush-rose vies, 

And a youth who raptured gazes 
On her veiled and down-cast eyes. 

" A boon ! a boon, kind spirit ! 

For a nobler life I pine — 
Give me being like the maiden. 

Let a mortal form be mine ! " 



168 A TALE OF LUZOX. 

Like the breath of angels' censers 
Went up the lily's praj^er — 

" Have thy wish ! " replied the spirit, 
" Oh, flower of all most fair ! " 

He breathed upon the lily, 
And lo ! in glad surprise, 

She smiled in maiden beauty. 
With the morning in her eyes. 

Ah ! woe for all the fond hearts 
By the spirit's work undone — 

For the hearts tbat love the lily, 
Who, alas ! can love but one ! 

Then beware ! beware the maiden. 
This queen-flower of my thought ; 

Lest you feel what woe to mortals 
The flower-sprite has wrought ! 



A TALE OF LUZON. 

Sits the old man in his dwelling, underneath the roof of 

reeds, 
To himself his sorrows telling, as a hermit tells his 

beads — 
In the bush, of glowing noontide scarce a leaf stirs in the 

breeze. 
Where it floateth, perfume-laden, lightly o'er the citron 

trees ; 



A TALE OF LUZON. 169 

And fi silver fount is flashing in the sunlight near the 

door, 
Making music ■with its plashing, rippling o'er the pebbly 

floor — 
But the old man, all unheeding, sits in loneliness apart, 
Still the page of memory reading deeply traced upon his 

heart. 
Lo, he weepeth ! no one seeth -whore the tear adown his 

vest, 
Trickles o'er tbe scapulary hanging low upon his breast. 
But anon he reverent bending, crosses thrice his fui-rowed 

brow. 
And his voice is utterance lending to his plaintive spirit 
now — 
" Mary Mother ! Mother ! hear me ! 
Hear a sorrowing heart complain — 
Earthly sorrow once came near thee, 

Thou hast suftered mortal pain. 
To the World's polluted altars 

I from holier temples turned. 
And my heart, as 'twere a censei-. 
There before mine idol burned. 
As the tree her odorous incense 

Poureth ever to the sun — 
I have found the God I worshipped 

But a base parhelion ! 
Life's bright visions all have left me 

Where my hopes lie crushed and strown ; 
Time of all I loved has reft me, 

And I am alone — alone ! 
Yet my soul, amid the ashes 
Where I sit with memory, 



l70 A TALE OF LUZON. 

Through the tears that cloud my hishes, 
Star of Heaven ! looks up to thee ! " 
Now, a bird swan-white, and shaking drops like diamonds 

from his plumes, 
Springs from out the glancing fountain, and across the 

garden blooms. 
Bright as 'twere a heavenly sunbeam, darteth through the 

open door — 
Swan-white, enters like a spirit from the far Elysian 

shore. 
Thrice the old man round he circles in a viewless, airy 

ring, 
Then upon the rude, stone table, folding down each snowy 

wing, 
Silently the white bird perches close beside the old man's 

place, 
And with eyes clear, soft, and luminous, looketh in his 

sorrowing face. 

Lo ! the sun, long past its zenith, hasteth on to other lands, 
And no more the old man leaneth down his brow upon his 

hands. 
But beneath the glowing sunset in the cottage door he stands. 
None may know what words of comfort that swan-white 

bird could impart, 
But joy illumes the old luun's visage, and sweet peace is in 

his heart. 



THE PORTRAIT OF A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN. 171 

THE PORTRAIT OF A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN. 

En tfjc ^tutiio of ,S. <S. ©ssooto. 

Say, thou whose master hand has wrought 
These bright creations here of art ; 

Is this but thine embodied thouo-ht, 
Or has thy picture counterpart ? 

Thou hast stolen Berenice's hair 

Methinks, from out the darkened sky, 

To grace the brow so pure and fair, 
Whereon these glittering tresses lie. 

Tell me if this soft, downy blush, 

The soul-born radiance of this eye, 
Lie in thy palette and thy brush, 

Or have they a reality ? 

Thou sayest her home is all divine. 

With its bright wealth of household flowers ; 

That her fair children's children twine, 
Like tendrils, round her sunny hours. 

Ah, sure, a being formed so rare 
Has power life's freshness to restore — 

Has found the wondrous fountain where 
Immortal Juno laved of yore ! 

Yet no! the beauty here enshrined 

For ever, by thy master art. 
Reveals the pure incarnate Mind, 

Whose Kanathos is in the heart. 



1 ? 2 MYTH. 



MYTH. 



Night on the Ionian Sea— The Sicilian Coast, with Mount Etna vising above, is 
seen in the distance.— A Fisliing-boat, with Fishermen and Mariners. — They 
sing ahernately, and in unison. 

AIR. 

Night ! Night ! — O'er Ionia's tide 

The watch-fire stars burn pale — 
How the waters flash as w^e onward glide 

'Neath the press of our swelling sail ! 
There is richer ore in the darksome wave 

Than the tripos form of gold — 
The draught which they of Miletus gave 

To the Delphian shrine, of old. 

CHORUS OF FISHERMEN. 

Cast — cast your nets as we silent ride, 
For the wealth of the ocean mine — 

The gems that low in the dark caves hide. 
And lurk in the glittering brine. 



INVOCATION TO NEPTUNE. 
A FISHERMAN. 

Hear ! — Sea-God ! hear the lowly fisher's prayer- 
Behold ! we pour libation unto thee ! — 

We have no golden chalice wi'ought with cai"e — 
Our humble cup we cast upon the sea. 



MYTH. 173 



Be tliou propitious ! — Fill our nets ere morn, 
From I'ocks beneath, in safety keep our prow ; 

And lo ! a gift thy temple to adorn, 
An offering to thine altar, here we vow. 



A MARINER. 



Erewhiles, as grappled hull to hull we lay, 

I smote the Norseman on the midland tide — 
I bore his shield a trophy from the fray. 

An hundred dents are on its bossy side. 
The spear wherewith I conquered in the fight, 

And captured buctler shall our offering be — 
Guard us from danger on the wave to-night. 

From reef and shoal beneath the tranquil sea. 
{ Voices rej^eat ;) — 

Guard us from peril on the wave to-night. 

From reef and shoal beneath the tranquil sea. 

ANOTHER VOICE. 

NiMit ! Nio-ht ! — Now the low^ wind hushes, — 
On Latmos couched Endymion sleeps — 
Lone Echo, moaning, her vigil keeps 

Where the soft, clear fountain gushes, — 
Typha3us heaveth and Etna gleams. 
And the rock resoundeth where Scylla screams 

And the mighty whirlpool rushes ! 

CHORUS OF FISHERMEN AND MARINERS. 

Cast — cast your nets, as we silent ride. 
For the wealth of the ocean mine — 

The gems that low in the dark caves hide 
And lurk in the o-litterino; brine! — 



1*74 MYTH. 



A horn sounils at a distance. 
THE H E L M S M A N. 

Hark ! — from beyond the clustering Cyclades, 

I hear old Triton wind bis ringing horn ! 

Far up the midland sea its echoes borne, 
With ling'ring note come swelling on the breeze. 

Deucalion heard afar the wakening sound, 
And bent in gladness on his wave-girt height; 
And when in joy broke forth the morning light, 

The flood had passed — the vales lay green around. 

A MARINER. AT THE PROW. 

Mark ! the orient blushes ! — ( Voices.) — Hail ! — 
The Sun-God comes from his ocean bride ! 
His steeds spring forth from yon glowing tide — 

Hail !— All hail !— 
Propontis flashes beneath his beams, 
His golden shield over Delos gleams 

And gildeth our purple sail. 

CHORUS OF FISHERMEN AND MARINERS. 

Joy! joy ! — Our bark in his beams shall ride. 
As we toil o'er the ocean mine — 

Cast — cast your nets as we silent glide, 
There is wealth in the glittering brine ! 



MYTH. 



A VOICE. 



175 



Hark ! — Hark ! — Sweet music floats around ! 

Is it Orion on the sea ? 
List I — List! the all-entrancing sound. 

Filling the air with melodv ! 



A MARINER. 



Robed in her flowing locks of gold, 

Her blue eyes gazing o'er the sea. 
On yonder towering chff behold 

The Syren maid Parthenope ! 
Oh ! brightly through the dashing spray, 

Gleam her feir feet the crag that press ; 
White as the waves that round them play, 

Enamored of their loveliness. 
There just emerged from out the brine. 

As Aphrodite fair she stands ! 
She sings to me in strains divine — 

She waves to me her beauteous hands. 
Put up the helm for where yon isle 

Enshrines my radiant deity ; 
For I would live but in her smile, 

Or die beneath its witchery ! 



A VOICE. 



They rise ! — They rise ! the nereid band — 
The beauteous Syren sisters three ! 

And now with twining arms they stand, 
And hark ! they sing — 

(Syrens.) — Come — Come with me ! 



11 G MYTH. 



SONG OF THE SYRENS. 

Under tlie tide where the briglit dolphins ghde, 

Low in the caverns we sea-maidens hide — 

There gayly we revel — and lightly we sleep, 

And life passes merrily down in the deep. 

Come, fishermen, down where the gay sea-weeds grow — 

Where blooms the red coral no toil do we know ! 

But time floweth on like a long holiday. 

And care throws no shadow to darken our way. 

Come ! — come ! — come ! 

Dow^n many a fathom there lieth a wreck — 

Bright jew^els are strewed like the sands o'er her deck. 

And gold there lies scattered in many a heap — 

Come, fishermen, down for the wealth of the deep ! 

We have set forth the banquet and poured the bright wine. 

And spread your soft couches all under the brine ; 

And while to sweet slumber your eyelids ye fold. 

We will curtain your sleep with our ringlets of gold. 

Come ! — come ! — come ! 

Mariners, — Put up the helm for yonder isle ! — 
Fishennen. — Beware ! beware their treacherous wile ! 
Destruction lurks their smile beneath — 
Their song is guile — their clasp is death ! — 
Mariners. — Speed ! speed good bark ! — 
Fisherman. — Put back ! — Put back ! — 

Mariner. — See how the foam- wreath marks her track ! 

She cleaves the wave with dauntless prow ! — 
Fisherman. — Great Sea-God ! aid ! oh ! aid us now ! — 
Another Fisherman. — 

Put back ! put back ! ye traitorous band ! 
Turn, turn her prow from yonder strand ! — 



MYTH. 



177 



Mariner. — Come, brotliers ! leap the brine witbin, 
And leave your toil yon prize to win ! 

Another Voice. — 

Away ! — away ! — we'll breast the tide — 
Be hope our strength, and love our guide ! 

Fisherman. — They swim the sea — the waves they ride — 
With giant strength they breast the tide — 
They gain the shore — Oh ! veil our eyes, 
Ere we behold the sacrifice ! 

CHORUS OF FISHERMEN. 

Put off ! — Put off ! — We cleave the spray — 
Speed on, good bark ! our homeward way ! 
She rides the wave with dauntless prow — 
Great ISTeptune guides — protects us now ! 

helmsman's song. 

Behold ! far o'er the billow, 

Like sea-nymph 'mid the foam ; 
The bright wave for her pillow, 

Lies our fair island home ! 
Home, where fond hopes are svvelhng 

Within each artless breast ; 
Where love illumes our dwelling, 

And toil makes sweet our rest. 
Sicily ! Dear Sicily ! 

Where toil makes sweet our rest ! 

We fear no more the dangers 
That in the dark wave sleep ; 

We bring our nets o'erflowing 
With treasure from the deep ; 



178 AN HERB FROM TICONDEROGA. 

And hark ! soft voices greet us, 

Glad voices from the shore ; 
Where dear ones soon vt'ill meet us, 

And welcome us once more ! 
Sicily ! Fair Sicily ! 

With " Welcome home once more !" 

VOICES FROM THE SHORE. 

Welcome ! — Toil and peril o'er — 
Welcome ! — Welcome home once more ! 

VOICES OF FISHERMEN. 

Hail!— Hail!— Hail!— 
Ere the sinking sun from the western sand. 

At eve shall flash o'er the darkening brine ; 
Our keel shall lie on Sicilia's strand, 

And our nets shall drip from the Sea-God's shrine ! 



AN HERB FROM TICONDEROGA. 

" What matter is it that we shall sleep in the dust, if our work is done, and 
well done ; if we have helped to raise up in those that conne after us, a mighty host 
of the intelligent, the virtuous, the happy and the free 7"— Orville Dbwey, 

Our country boasts no proud ancestral halls, 

Her sons, no broad entailed inheritance, 

Save that for which their fathers watched and toiled. 

And with the stout heart and the true sword won ; 

The boundless freehold of her ancient hills, 

A birthright for her sons, unalienable. 



AN HERB FROM TICONDEROGA. 1*79 

Oh, there were patriot hearts with them of old, 
Beating beneath the 'kerchief and the coif. 
As e'er 'neath corselet beat, and morion : 
And hands the homely distaff skilled to twirl, 
Strono; need had nerved to wield the battle-brand, 
To smite the invader there, of home and hearth : 
That for a beacon to arouse the land. 
Had to their roof-tree laid the kindling torch ; 
On their own household altars lit the pile, 
And to their country burnt the holocaust ! 

I stood upon the ancient battle-ground, 

By the proud waters of the Lake Champlain, 

Where first our nation's glorious banner waved 

Triumphant o'er the conquered battlements. 

And gazing there, on broken arch and wall, 

I marked how man had helped the work of time. 

Gay friends were round me, and their tones of glee. 

Voices anon shouting my " household name," 

Came, wind-borne, to mine ear : unheeding all, 

And, bending down, from 'mid the ruins gray 

I plucked an herb ; such, famed for healing power. 

As that wherewith nurse feeds the puling babe : 

A healing herb, sprung from the soil of death ! 

Emblem it seemed of the fair heritage, 

Blood-bought, in trust bequeathed us by our sires. 

Shall we not keep imtrod by stranger feet. 
The heirdom thus in suffering redeemed ? 
Oh then, bethink ye of that golden time, 
Greece in her age of glory ; seven-hilled Kome : 
Turn to the ancient scroll of history — 
Is it not writ on the enduring page, 



180 AN HERB FROM TICONDEROGA. 

Which, in all time, each age has chronicled, 
How men of might, by ease enervate made, 
Bowed to the tyrant's scourge, the conqueror's yoke 
How, folding luxury round them as a shroud, 
There, on the Forum and the Acropolis, 
Those children of a race of demigods, 
Clasping their chains, lay down and ceased to be 
For evermore among the nations numbered ! 

The skeleton that sitteth at the feast 
We veil, and wreathe its hidden brow with flowers, 
And proffer to its hand the beaded cup ! 
Was she not prodigal, that Eastern queen. 
Who in her goblet, to enrich the draught. 
Oast vauntingly the pearl of nameless price ? 
More prodigal than the Egyptian they, 
Who waste in pleasure's cup the pearls of mind ! 
Mother, above the couch of childhood bending, 
Sing, sing of freedom in thy cradle songs ; 
Breathe to the lisping boy that climbs thy knee, 
Proud tales of all our storied battle-plains : 
Tell him of Concord's field, of Bunker's height ; 
How, from each blood-drop sown at Lexington, 
As from the fabled dragon's teeth of old. 
An armed avenger to the conflict sprang ! 
Then, while he listens, tell of Washington. 
• Bind thou the sandals to his willing feet. 
And point his way the path of freedom on : 
So shall he bless thee, when, in after years, 
He sits, an aged man, beneath the tree 
His fathers planted, telling to his sons 
Tales of our nation's glory — and of thee ! 



THE SOJOURNERS IN THE DESERT. 181 



THE SOJOURNERS IN THE DESERT.* 

The deepening hues of twilight fell, 

Empurpling all around ; 
When a silent, banded company 

Along the prairie wound. 
No armed and war-clad host were they, 

With plumed and waving crest ; 
But a pilgrim's staff w^as in each hand, 

And a cross upon each breast. 

Their bark had crossed the stormy sea, 

A stranger soil they trod ; 
Faith-led, amid the wild to seek 

A refuge with their God. 
The hatchet rang, the tall oaks fell, 

Amid that hush profound; 
And a hut of boughs soon crowned the swell 

Of the ancient burial mound. 

Still fearless o'er his broad domain 

The bounding deer Avould pass. 
And bowed beneath the bison's tread 

The waving prairie-grass — 

"Some of these mounds are of very considerable dimensions, and on one of 
tiiem a number of refugee monks of the order of La Trappe found a retreat for 
some years, during the troubles in their native land. They cultivated tiie Apron 
or step of the Big Mound, as their kitchen garden, and set themselves down in the 
solitude of the Prairie to the silent observance of their severe monastic rule 
among these everlasting monuments of a departed race. They have, however, 
long ago quitted their temporary retreat. From them the principal eminence has 
since often been termed the ' Monk's Mound.' " 

Latkobe's " Rambles in North America." 



182 TO MRS. S. L. 

The uncurbed steed, with eye of fire, 
And neck that scorned the rein. 

Still snuffed, with nostrils keen, the air 
Of freedom on the plain : 

And the strong eagle from the wild 

Went soaring on his way, 
For the stillness of the wilderness 

On that great desert lay. 
There were marks of culture on the mound, 

And dwellers on the steep. 
But a vow was on each sealed lip, 

That hush, unbroke, to keep. 

In silence there, beneath the cowl, 

Was shrouded every heart — 
Mysterious mound ! Oh, had they not 

In thy dark being part ? 
Thou, in whose bosom secret lie, 

With shades of time o'ercast. 
The ashes and the memory 

Of a deep buried Past. 



TO MRS. S. L. 

We were sorrowing in the May-time- 
We two, with spirits twain, 

O'er a precious heart-link broken 
From affection's priceless chain. 



A DIRGE FOR MARGARET. 183 

But slie who, living, loved us, 

From her heavenl}", high commune, 
Pitying, gave us to each other, 

With the roses of sweet June. 

In the soul-chords of thy music, 

In thy tones of melody, 
Her angel voice seems whispering 

Of thy tenderness, to me. 

Seems to whisper, soft and sweetly, 

As in life she used to do — 
" You must love her dearly, dearly ! 

For her soul is warm and true." 

Then the love she has bequeathed us. 

Let us cherish for her sake ; 
And the bond her memory hallows, 

May no rude hand ever break. 



A DIRGE FOR MARGARET. 

" Mort, mort est le mot farouche 
Qui touche 
Si malheureusement le coeur." 

Old Romatjnt. 

We bring a sad, pale flower, O earth ! 

To lay within thy breast ; 
We strew Spring's earliest violets here, 

Above her place of rest ; 
We have looked our last on the still, cold brow, 
And be our prayer for the Hving now. 

Over the shrined and blest. 



184 



A SONG OF CALABRIA. 



She asked no sounding notes of fame — 

No laurel leaves to wear ; 
Meet were the flower of her sweet name,* 

To wreathe a life so fair — 
While the tender voices of her hearth, 
Murmur of her they miss on earth, 

Softly at evening there. 

"Weep for the li\ing — not for her 
Who the lonely vale has trod ; 

For the sweetest wife and mother, here, 
Under the lowly sod — 

For she sweepeth now the golden strings, 

And her spirit folds its angel wings 
Nio-h to the throne of God. 



A SONG OF CALABRIA, f 



FROM THE FRENCU OF LAMARTINE. 



When in the orchard I, in life's young hours, 
Reclined beneath the blooming citron's shade, 

Or sported where the almond spread her flowers. 

While spring's light breezes with my ringlets played ; 

* Margeurite — the Daisy. 

•j- " II y a un morceau de poe&ie nationale dans la Calabre 
que j'ai entendu chanter souvent aux ferames d'Amalfi en reve- 
nant de la fontaine. Ce que ces femmes de Calabre disaient 
ainsi de leur ange gardien, I'humanite peut le dire de la poesie. 
C'est aussi cette voix interieure qui lui pa.-le a tous les ages, qui 
aime, chante, prie ou pleure avec elle a toutes les phases de son 
pelerinage seculaire ici has." — Des Destinees de la Poesie. 



A SONG OF CALABRIA. 185 

Deep in my soul a low, sweet voice I heard, 

And sudden rapture sliot through all my veins — 

'Twas not the wind, the carol of the bird, 

Nor childhood's accents that my being stirred. 

Nor manhood's tones, nor woman's gentler strains : 

The voice was thine, my guardian spirit ! thine ! 

It was thy heart soft whispering to mine. 

Again, when doomed from him I loved to part. 

After those hours beneath the sycamore ; 
While his last kiss was echoing in my heart — 

My heart, that none had caused to thrill before — 
Once more I heard that murmur low and sweet : 

'Twas not his "farewell" sighing through the piu/s ; 
'Twas not the sound of his departing feet ; 
Nor did the wind in melody repeat 

The distant song of lovers 'mid the vines : 
The voice was thine, my guardian spirit ! thine ! 
It was thy heart soft whispering to mine. 

And when I, rich in all a mother's joys. 

Brought round my hearth my Avealth, a bounteous store; 
When with their little hands my ruddy boys 

Shook down the figs that grew beside my door, 
A tender voice awoke within my breast, 

Through all my soul I felt its murmurs glide ; 
'Twas not the young birds chirping in their nest, 
Nor the calm breathing of the babe at rest. 

Nor song of fishermen upon the tide : 
The voice was thine, my guardian spirit ! thine ! 
It was tliv heart lowsinorino- then with mine. 



& 



Now that I am alune, and old, and gray. 

Here, while the thicket shields me from the winds, 



180 THE LEGEND OF THE NUN. 

I tend the kids and children where they play, 
Stirring the coals to warm my shrivelled hands ; 

And still that voice remains with me, and cheers, 
Consoles and strengthens me for evermore ; 

'Tis not the voice I heard in early years, 

Nor the remembered accents that my tears 
Can never to my lonely age restore ; 

But it is thine, my guardian spirit ! thine ! 

Thy heart is with me still, and weeps with mine. 



THE LEGEND OF THE NUN. 



FROM THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO. 



" Enfans ! c'est des boeufs qui passent- 
Cachez vos rouffe tabJiei-s !" 



Listen, young and bright-eyed maidens, 

While I tell you how a nun, 
Sworn to live the bride of Heaven, 

Loved, alas ! and was undone. 
Fair Padilla del Torrijos 

Was of birth and lineage high — 
Children, hide your scarlet aprons ! 

Hark ! the bulls are coming by ! 

Many a daughter of Grenada, 

Many a fair Sevillian maid. 
Yields her eager heart a captive 

To some wooers serenade ; 



THE LEGEND OF THE NUN. 187 

But to son 2: beneath lier lattice 

Padilla never deigned reply — 
Children, hide your scarlet aprons ! 

Hark ! the bulls are coming by ! 

Not the plaint of sighing minstrel 

Could the maid with love inspire, 
Never eye of Spanish novice 

Burned with purer, holier fire. 
In a convent of Toledo 

She renounced each earthly tie — 
Children, hide your scarlet aprons ! 

Hark ! the bulls are coming by ! 

" For," she said, " the world forgetting. 

In my peaceful convent cell. 
Praying ever for the sinful, 

I the bride of Christ will dwell. 
When the angels are our bucklers 

Hell's dark powers we may defy — " 
Children, hide your scarlet aprons ! 

Hark ! the bulls are coming by ! 

Scarcely was the maiden cloistered, 

Praying early, fasting late, 
When a robber from the mountain 

Came, a pilgrim, to the gate. 
Hid beneath his sacred mantle 

You his armor might espy — 
Children, hide your scarlet aprons ! 

Hark ! the bulls are coming by ! 

His a visage fierce and lowering. 
And his large and tawny hand 



188 THE LEGEND OF THE NUN. 

Harder seemed than glove of iron ; 

Yet the nun loved the brigand : 
With a wild, nnholy passion 

Loved this man of mystery — 
Children, hide ydm' scarlet aprons ! 

Hark ! the bulls are coming by ! 

Oft in vesture of a palmer 

He would nigh the convent win ; 
Oft, arrayed like a knight-templar, 

Came this fearftd man of sin ; 
With the cross wrought on his corslet. 

Lance and pennon fluttering high — 
Children, hide your scarlet aprons ! 

Hark ! the bulls are comino- bv! 

And the nun, her vows forgetting, 

Listening to the tempter's wile, 
Gave the bandit, sent by Satan, 

Entrance to the chapel aisle ; 
At the hour when 'neath the tapers 

Phantom shapes seem hovering nigh- 
Children, hide your scarlet aprons ! 

Hark ! the bulls are coming by ! 

'Tis a wild and fearful leo-end 

o 

That the holy fathers tell, 
How accursed Padilla yielded. 

Maid to love and saint to hell ! 
Myriads of croaking ravens 

Fled [ilong the darkened sky — 
Children, hide your scarlet aprons! 

Hark ! the bulls are coming bv ! 



THE LEGEND OF THE NUN. 189 

Fiercely flashed the arrowy lightning 

Then along the vaulted aisle, 
And the bolt to its foundations 

Crashing rent the sacred pile ; 
Curses loud and fiendish laughter 

Throuo-h the nave resounded high — 
Children, hide your scarlet aprons ! 

Hark ! the bulls are coming by ! 

Far adown the winding valley, 

Where the sportive lambkins leap ; 
Where at hot and glowing noontide, 

In the shadows pant the sheep ; 
There the fallen convent-towers 

All o'ergrown with ivy lie — 
Children, hide your scarlet aprons ! 

Hark ! the bulls are coming by ! 

When the night to shapes fantastic 

Turns the crumbling Gothic pile, 
Slow a nun with glimmering cresset 

Glides along the ruined aisle ; 
And .a shape arrayed in armor 

Follows onward, ever nigh — 
Children, hide your scarlet aprons ! 

Hark ! the bulls are coming by ! 

Thus throughout the darkened cloisters, 

Noiselessly the phantoms pace; 
And anon, with loud bewailing, 

Strive they vainly to embrace ; 
While the sound of fiendish laughter. 

Shouting, mocking, makes reply — 



190 THE ROSE AND THE TOMB. 

Children, hide your scarlet aprons ! 
Hark ! the bulls are coming by ! 

The traveller, as he swiftly passes, 

Affrighted at the helhsh din ; 
"While his brow he trembling crosses, 

Asks who suffers here for sin ; 
Then fiery serpents interlacing. 

Trace two burnino^ names on hio*li- 
Children, hide your scarlet aprons ! 

Hark ! the bulls are coming by ! 

And the abbot Ildefoxso, 

Who is with the saints in heaven, 
Ordered that each lady abbess 

(May our errors be forgiven !) 
In her convent for a warning 

Should recount this history — 
Children, hide your scarlet aprons ! 

Hark ! the bulls are coming by ! 



THE ROSE AND THE TOMB. 

FROM THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO. 

Thou that dwellest within my shadow — 
To the rose thus said the tomb — 

Love's flower ! that here in freshness 
Bloomest alone, amid the gloom — 



CHANSONNETTE. 191 



Thou tliat clinorest to the seDulclire, 

Like a fadeless memory ; 
What dost thou with the early tears 

That the morning sheds on thee ? 



'& 



Then the rose, low breathing, answered, 

I distil a perfume here ; 
And I give its honeyed fragrance forth 

To the solemn atmosphere. 
And thou, dark tomb. Oh, answer ! 

What dost thou, amid thy Avails, 
With the pale and silent guests that throng 

Thine ever open halls ? 
And the tomb said, of the beautiful 

That to mine abode are given ; 
For ea3h pulseless form I give, oh ! rose ! 

An angel soul to Heaven. 



CHANSONNETTE. 

FROM THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO, 

Were I a crowned monarch, 

I would give my diadem. 
My triumphal car, my sceptre, 

Enriched with many a gem — 
I would give my baths of porphyry, 

My ships that filled the sea. 
My empire, people, all, beloved, 

For one sweet smile from thee ! 



192 THE DEAD LEAF. 

Were I enthroned in heaven, 

I would give all earth, and air. 
And the angels, and the demons. 

That bowed before me there — 
I would give yon skies, with all their worlds. 

Time, space, eternity, 
And the teeming depths of chaos, 

For one sweet kiss from thee ! 



THE DEAD LEAF. 

FROM THE FRENCH OF JACQUES ARNAUD. 

Thou faded leaf! that, riven 
From the bough, art hither driven. 

Whither fliest thou ? " Question vain ! 
The storm, with rending stroke. 
Has cleft my parent oak. 

And tossed me to the plain ; 
And now the north wind hurls me, 
And the zephyr lightly whirls me 

Ever to and fro ao-ain. 
And with no fear remaining, 
I am going, uncomplaining, 

(Oh, mortal ! heed the moral ! ) 
Where every fair thing goes — 
With the petal of the rose. 

And the leaf of envied laurel ! " 



ODE XX. OF ANACREON. 193 



ODE XX. OF ANACREON. 

FROM THE FRENCH OF MADAME DACIER. 

NiOBE, maddened by her woes, of yore, 
The gods in pity turned to marble fair ; 

And wretched Progne, doomed for evermore, 
Changed to a swallow, wings the upper air. 

But, ah ! would Love, whom I, enslaved, obey. 
By his sweet power transform me, I would be 

The mirror in thy hand, if thus, alway, 
Thy gentle eyes would fondly turn on me. 

Or I would be the perfume that reveals 
Its sweets amid the tresses of thy hair ; 

Or the soft veil which o'er thy bosom steals, 
And, jealous, hides the ivory treasure there. 

Or I would be the robe that round thee flows, 
The zone that circles thee with fond caress ; 

The rivulet that with thy beauty glows, 
And to its breast enclasps thy loveliness. 

Or I were blest those envied pearls to be. 

That closely thus thy swan-white neck entwine ; 

Or e'en to be the sandal prest by thee, 
Were for thy lover destiny divine. 



10 



194 pirate's song. 



PIRATE'S SONG. 

FROM THE FRENCH. 

When the foaming wave throws me 

Aloft to the sky — 
When it opes to inclose me, 

Its rage I defy. 
No gloom from the tempest I borrow- 

Nor heed how it blows, 

When the wine flows. 

Drink ! drink, my brave ! 

For wreck on the wave 
May finish onr voyage to-morrow ! 

When far from me my fair one 

To another is kind — 
When her heart to the near one 

Still turns like the wind — 
Ne'er over her falsehood I sorrow 

While, turn as she will. 

My glass I fill. 

Drink ! drink, my brave I 

For wreck on the wave 
May finish our voyage to-morrow. 



CONSOLATION. 195 



CONSOLATION. 

FROM THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO. 

Since from thy star one cheering ray 

Has lit my sad skies with its beam — 
Since one bright rose leaf from thy day 

Has fallen on my life's dark stream — 
Since o'er my spirit, like a spell, 

Thy voice has poured its gentle ruth ; 
And I have drawn from Love's charmed well, 

At thy sweet lips, perpetual youth — 
I say, as these fleet years depart. 

Haste with your faded garlands by ! 
There blooms a flower within my heart 

That none may cull, that ne'er may die. 
Ye cannot scatter, in your ire. 

From my fair day its blest returns ; 
Nor dim my heart's immortal fire 

With all the ashes of your urns — 
Ye cannot dash, with your swift wings, 

The cup I drain to sweet excess. 
While from the draught more memory sprino-s. 

Than ye have of forgetfulness. 



196 love's philosophy. 



LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY. 

FROM POLITIAN. ^TRADUCTION DE FONTENELLE. 

" Plato, who had written and said so many fine things of ' celestial love,' 
laid aside his philosophy to pen verses on the dawning wrinkles of his fair friend, 
Archeanassa."— Lady Morgan. 

Archeanassa rules my heart — 

And when her beauty you recall, 
Blame not the bard whom her sweet art 

Thus holds in love's bewildering thrall. 
For though upon her cheek the trace 

Of years remorseless I descry, 
For me each wrinkle has a grace. 

And there the Loves in ambush lie. 

If thus, each hour, with new delight. 

For me her waning beauty shine — 
If e'en her age my heart invite, 

And I her wrinkles own divine — 
Ye, hapless ! who beheld her ere 

Paled from her cheek its early glow — 
Ere time had traced its record there — 

Ah ! what you suffered who may know ! 



THE END. 



Wis 



Is 



«>* «.'»• 







« • 













.*' ..-•, **. 














